Nevermore
The Super Bowl means nothing.
There are no patriots, not in this lot. Eagles? The raptors are insulted.
And this owl silliness, the game with the name? Owls ain’t all that welcome here.
Remember that.
It’s Sunday, but it’s not winter. Hell, it’s barely even February. There isn’t even any snow, just a wan wintry sun skimming along the surface of bare branches, a single leaf, as gold as it is desiccated, trembling overhead.
And the raven hops down between the branches, between the shadow and the light, to give me the eye.
What?
He just looks at me appraisingly, cranes his neck, twists and turns it from his spot on the branch.
He knows something.
Whatever it is, he’s not talking. He just makes himself at home in the crook of the aspen, waiting, watching, peering out from under his coal-black cloak. He sits there like some sage, some seer, some prophet here to foretell our doom, Poe’s raven here to cackle at humankind’s undoing.
I swear, I can hear him in the silence of the wind.
Nevermore.