By the Graveside

She wrestles with the funeral raven’s
shades of black on glossy pinions,
her widow’s weeds dulled by summer dust,
drenched with sorrow and mistrust
of every mourner around the grave
of the man whose soul she could not save.
Stifled sobs pulse in her throat
prise open her lips and, with a croak
of feathers and a slash of beak,
her muted shadow starts to speak
in tongues of nightingale and lark,
a bird of twilight and the dark.

Kim M. Russell, 2017

By the Graveside
Image by Laura Makabesku

My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge #177

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