By Carolyn Pinet
Outside the coffee-house
ravens, crows and magpies
survey me and call from the rafters -
what are they cheering on?
It's cold and I should go inside
but something detains me
on this early January day
between New Year and Epiphany -
is it that those things with feathers
know something I don't? - or
perhaps they celebrate an event
I have yet to imagine.
But, after all, what could this New Year
bring us apart from more of the same old...?
Still, here I am communing with birds
and the sudden thought that
Emily D just might be right:
maybe hope does come and perch in the soul
because the little thing with feathers
is never deterred at all:
look, Jesus is newborn and,
why, here come the gifted Magi!