Chambermaid With Ravens Poem by Robert Ronnow

The Aberdeen bus arrives, deposits and boards
the same people daily. One is the dark-haired
chambermaid at the tourist lodge, awkward
in her print dress and wearing a scowl. Her
breasts look soft although her legs are
not perfect.
                   The sun dominates the weather
this summer and with blackened face I buy a
popsicle each day and come closest to distant
childhood. This is what the chambermaid notices
and scowls about–the popsicle and sneakers of
a grown man. On a summer night what passions
would I find in her?
                              We take our place in the pattern
of daily activity, pick-up trucks with crews
arriving and leaving, uniformed rangers narrow
in their imaginations. Two ravens fly together
over the unit, the ravens are behaving like hawks
lately, beautifully. Both my memory and sense
of mystery are bowing to knowledge of death.
                                                                       Human
society. It takes me along. Our role is not
to understand it all. The wheel on this piece
of machinery, turning of the night around the stars.
Spires of green fir against the sky's blue blue.
If man, the monkey, explodes his earth, will my
bones then float among the stars?
                                                   Children
and the blue green earth are what the chambermaid
and I may share. She and I or another man,
me and the naked women of the past. What weather
there has been this summer, best since '79. Felling
trees in the forest, I look uphill. Two ravens float
like hawks, wind, no sound.