Raven Days
by Andrew Hudgins These are what my father calls our raven days. The phrase is new to me. I'm not sure what it means. If it means we're hungry, it's right. If it means we live on carrion, it's right. It's also true that every time we raise a voice to sing, we make a caw and screech, a raucous keening for the dead, of whom we have more than our share. But the raven's an ambiguous bird. He forebodes death, and yet he fed Elijah in the wilderness and doing so fed all of us. He knows his way around a desert and a corpse, and these are useful skills.