On the way to the funeral, we listened

to a radio report about elephants

gathering for the same reason,

as if our human practices have

become so unknowable and rote,

we justify them only through purer

observances performed solely through

instinct. The man who died, poached

of the attributes we believe grant us

dominion over all other creatures,

loved animals, saw in his dogs

and cats, in the birds his wife

lured to their yard with shelter

and seed, the qualities absent or

apparently dwindling in his own

form: balance, agility; a need

to cultivate lifelong ties regardless

of random actions and deliberate

severance of mind from muscle,

intent and meaning. After the funeral,

we drove home and spotted, foraging

in the grassy median, a pair of ravens,

almost mythological in their lustrous

coats, every feather a reflection of

what we see in the future for ourselves,

or how they must feel about their

past antecedents.