Ravens
William Patterson
They say “adventures begin where the road ends,”
The raven will meet you there.
I first saw a raven in Yellowstone,
Riding on the mountain air.
Ravens wander to the edge of our world,
To see one you must wander into theirs.
Go beyond the fences, streets and lawns,
Beyond where horns and sirens blare.
Where the wind is cold and lonely,
When the stars at last appear,
A croak will pierce the silence,
And the raven must be near.
Their realm begins in the mountains,
The ramparts of the wild,
And stretches over woods and hills,
To all lands still undefiled.
Over desert waste
And arctic plain they fly.
They are princes of the world,
yet pilgrims of the sky.
They herald the wolf,
Foretelling woe,
Ebony prophets,
Gliding through falling snow.
Oh Raven,
So wild and free,
Who wanders in lonely places,
How like you I long to be.
THE LAST WAR
The crumbling towers sit downcast under a louring sky,
The earth trembles at the sound of beating hooves.
As Greek steel clashes with German iron,
The Old World screams, giving birth to the new.
Belisarius looks back, sharp of eye,
Seeing the empty cradle of Aurelian stone.
As Eastern ranks scar the Latin soil,
The battle ends for the Western throne.
I, from this palace, observe these events.
Where Cicero once spoke, my goats now graze,
My cows from the field now soil the marble floors,
And my fire by this throne has died with better days.