'So, get real, raven, on your highest perch...' Photo: Sergio Ibanez / Unsplash.
After God
'After God' by Jonathan Wooding
Get real, raven, on your highest perch –
winter sun can catch your beak yet,
O, silhouette on the empty sky.
Larch has lost her colour now.
Cattle hold their peace. Lichen
prospers on the ancient cherry.
Sunlight attends the land.
Horses pause their houyhnying.
Frost has vanished from glasshouse walls.
Susurrating eucalyptus,
cast the gold dust with the grit –
Olbers’ paradox has it that night
should be bright as day – stars
even in a luminous universe –
no voids for light to hide in;
but stars are mortal too, and
run with the running universe –
rays racing to reach us yet!
So, get real, raven, on your highest perch,
catch that gold dust on your beak – and
horses will houyhny in the winter sun.
