On the Origin of Black Birds by Khara House

It takes hundreds of millions of years to find her

but the dark ones discover their Eve in the fossilized

shallows of a lagoon. They call her Rosetta Stone, Mother

Bird, trace their talons through the delicate impression

of feathers in the limestone, her fine-grained imprint

of bone. Witness her forearms, her fingers, her gentle

curving claws, come as close to a caress as a lover.

She is excavated, brushed clean with warm black

feathers, chipped out bill by bill bit by bit until

her form is fresh, withdrawn from the earth, untombed,

flown to the free birds of the world. It is decided

that she belongs to all. The work begins,

dividing her bones, the hollow stamps of her plumes

pecked into relics, sold for seeds to the cardinals

who tuck them away in reliquaries, avail them

as blessings on the laybirds.

In time the relics fade, the bones decay. All

that is left of the avian eve is her memory, her myth.

An ancient soul that once had a tail, shed to touch

the night sky, spread her wings so deep into the night

that the inky ether wrapped her in its sheen,

set her glory in the morning, rival to the sun,

calls her clandestine, carbon, kohl, lastly crow, after lover.

Khara House, Pennsylvania, USA