Black

Is there something deeper than this world? Ask a crow, says Black. A crow may laugh at you, but he has a story to tell. It begins in legends-the old ones of black birds and gods, and the ones heard in the air-and dances to the shaman's drum. It leads to the desert, to simplicity and burning. We follow it into blackness, "the root and bed/ before any thing," and pour back into a world "where the wind shakes you." In these poems by Sarah Webb, we live a story that is both everyday and transcendent. Together we "stand beside the dry sand of the river/and feel something moving under it."