by Andrew Ray Williams

The sun found the dew
at my feet. In the ditch, a cricket
kept on as if dawn had not come.
It was still mostly dark,
and cold.
Since the egg carton held only shells,
I came out to see whether light was enough.
It was not.
Behind me, a sudden flutter.
I thought: owl, or bat,
some dark-winged thing. Then royal blue
flashed past my ear, and there he was,
on a bare bough.
Not until then did I know I was
in a wilderness
or how hungry I was—
my raven appeared as a bluebird,
and I was fed, like Elijah.

Andrew Ray Williams is a poet from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. His recent poems have appeared in Bramble, Ink in Thirds, and Trampoline. He is the author of A Weathered Ship: Poems.