Pray for Salvation

A crow found me
sleeping, wounded near death
on the foot-packed earth.

It plucked my life from me
like a kernel of corn
still green in its ear.

I cannot blame the birds. The gods
cannot blame me for cracking
crow-skulls with my hands.

I pray for salvation in death, and life
is always granted to me, no matter
how carelessly I've wielded my lives.

Life is cheap in lands awash with gods.
So I believe each innocent crow
whose corpse I gather from the dust

must pray in the dark fluid of death
for another crack at the egg, another
round of battle with the endlessly dying.

We tear at each other, feathers and flesh
falling like mulch to the path. What is
grief to creatures like us?

Penned by my hand on the 18th of Scarlatan, in the year 605 AF.