Cawed On

 Cawed On

Clackamas Riverbank 2025

We are called on,

   like the Raven,

to take back the sunlight

   from one

who would keep

our world in darkness.

This frosty January

   the Raven caws, unseen,

as we descend

   on a shadowed path

where cedar and fir

dapple sunlight.

And we are cawed on

  to call, to cry, to convoke, to cackle

deep from the backs of our throats

   we are now called on

to gather and make noise, much noise,

like the Raven, to defend and protect.

Like this clever corvid

   we are called on 

to rise up, to shape-shift,

   to make magic,

to smartly take that which has been

unformed and re-form anew.

And we will be called on

   over and over, to go back

into the darkness, again and again,

   without fear, like the Raven —

cawed on to go back and retrieve

the light we have left behind.