He waits on the edge of dusk, feathers flared like smoke,
A raven carved from midnight, dark words he never spoke.
Once, beside him flew a dove, pure as dawn’s first light,
They danced on winds and whispered vows beneath the endless night.
But in a world of black and white, shadows and morning’s glow,
The raven feared his sable wings might break the heart of snow.
So from the fields of silent stars, where moonlight lingers bright,
He turned his gaze and fled the light, a creature born of night.
Now, beneath a cloak of feathered black, he paces through the trees,
His human hands grown cold and bare, his voice a haunted breeze.
Once mortal flesh, he felt the warmth, their laughter soft as rain,
But thoughts of darkened wings returned, and so returned his pain.
The dove was more than mortal bones, a light that would not dim,
A man whose kindness bore the grace that matched each soaring limb.
They walked the same paths hand in hand, yet worlds kept them apart,
For the raven feared his shadowed soul would stain that tender heart.
In twilight's fading hush he soars, yet every gust brings ache,
The empty air, the mournful trees, a world he did forsake.
He longs for feathers brushed in white, for gentle cooing calls,
But doves, he tells himself, are meant for brighter skies and halls.
In flickers of a thousand wings he sees his lover’s face,
A man who smiled through every storm with soft, unyielding grace.
And as a raven or a man, in feathers or in skin,
He knows the empty hollow left, a world devoid of him.
So onward in the shadowed winds he casts his mournful gaze,
A raven trapped in bitter loss, lost in twilight's haze.
And though he flies from mortal grasp, from hands that held him tight,
A heart once touched by morning’s warmth forever longs for light.
