“And When Raven Shortcuts” by Carrie Nassif
and when raven shortcuts
to the living scarp of red boulders
air spare and still overhead
her nearly silent flight
tsip tsip tsip
is my heart beat beating
staccato sweeps of her wings
cleanse mind-sky like sage
this labyrinth is a barnacled tortoise
bare feet crunch into its pea-gravel shell
toe-heel toe-heel repeat
lavender-shaded driftwood
like a cool like a green-pool moment
following switchbacks to our pasts
all we will ever be
are these swaying seaweed strands
woven through diagonals of skittered sunlight
basking in the cadence of this throbbing brine
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image credit, Jamie Clifford
Carrie Nassif’s Artist Statement:
I am, in nearly alphabetical order: an advocate, a bisexual in a same-sex marriage, a cat AND dog person,
emotionally tender and goofy, an introverted but loyal friend, a liberal secular humanist, a mentor and
supervisor, a mother of two, the oldest of seven, a poet, a photographer, a psychologist, a privileged
white ally, a recovering intellectualizer, and a would-be memoirist living the rural Midwest.
