Hallow
everything echoes the dead and those not yet born returning speech in fragments like a gust of bells A northeasterly, strong and strange, full of rain, blows counterclockwise over the island at the beginning of the month. The air is cold, even though it’s from the north, since it’s been drawn up via the Southern Ocean. Things clang around in the wind, and panes rattle in their frames on what is usually the sheltered side of the house. Trees fall, braced as they are against prevailing westerlies but undefended from the east, their hold already weakened in wet ground. When the rain clears for a while, the waxing moon rides bright among clouds, with Jupiter sailing beside it. In the forest downhill from the house, T finds the beak and jawbones of a raven, skin and feathers of the face still attached – no skull, no other bones or feathers scattered around.