A conversation of ravens, hurled into
               the wind as it pushes low
across the dry forget-me-not ridges,
               the green flats of the Bow,

echoes off the scree like verbs from the tongue
               of travellers who knew each gap
in the cloud peaks, harvesting the valleys,
               retreating before the snow,

verbs in a language without relatives,
               a relic on a ripped map,
mouths that possessed a word for “starving
               though having a fish trap.”