No Rain Soothes Now

Sage Ravenwood

"East Wind And Winter Sun." Charles Ephraim Burchfield

No Rain Soothes Now

Silence is an echo to my deaf ears
Wanting to hear the wind’s quiet whistle
among newly budding leaves
I used to think Quaking Aspen 
clapped in merriment   Until they didn’t
To hear gravel crunch under tires
before the dogs warning growl
Those nights serenaded by rainfall
No rain soothes now    Give me my storm

Same Gang

Hope dangles a carrot
on a stick in front of a jackass.
Starving, I race after
piety carrots until my hooves split.
I’m left with coarse hide, glue flesh
covering donkey skeleton promises.
“Hope is the biggest bully I know,”
says the kid with her head
in the toilet getting another swirly.
The hearing aid sitting in my vanity –
Is a bushel worth of carrots,
knuckle-fisted bunches, half-eaten,
devoured by jackrabbits.
I crammed those carrots in my ear.
Full volume whistling buzz.
I’m sorry, I can’t hear anything you say
With all these carrots of false hope.
I can’t hear an angel choir either,
singing praises to a make-believe deity,
lurking under my bed / missing from reality.
If you haven’t figured it out, Faith and Hope
Belong to the same gang.

 Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs, Bjarki and Yazhi, and her one-eyed cat Max. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in Glass Poetry - Poets Resist, The Temz Review, and Contrary. She also has work forthcoming, Sundress Press anthology - The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry. @SageRavenwood