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On Cook Inlet

The soul must have many windows
to see so far beyond
material walls.

Raven flying over my roof
mutters hello.
And I notice

that the monks in this house
are all ravens. I envy
their ways—

their dark habits,
the simplicity
of their days.

In the misty rain
each tree, each wing—
a ship receding.

Rain becomes dusk, a light
so slight it hardly registers
but the body knows.

Sleep enters through the chimney,
mutes the song of the falling-
notes bird

till even the motes of the mind
lose touch with the day,
unleash the word.

—
Ever since she found a robin on her cereal box, Mary Mercier has been finding birds on the page. Her recent books include a collection of poems, Five Reports of Fugitive Dust, published by Meadowlark Press, and a picture book, The Butterfly Boat (De Vlinderboot), published in Dutch by Clavis Books, with an English edition to follow.

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