Previously published as Life on Mars (Seeker Magazine [Vancouver, BC], 2005).

An excerpt

Corvus Corax-The Raven

Siberian storm front-prophet,
MacBeth-black cloud,
And Poe's ache-

This trickster,
This ravenous clawer of
Fruits and seeds
And rotting flesh,
This coniferous roamer
And desert nomad,
Croaks like a mournful hag
Or mimics that diminutive
Brainless crow.

Inuit carvers
Immortalize this prankster-
Thief haunting ice fishermen,
This vaudeville clown who dumps
Snow on Yellowknife-victims
Beneath steep metal roofs.

In the torrent valley of Cherith,
You fed Elijah
Between ravines and crags,

Your thunderbolt blackness
Filled aerial somersaults
And upside-down fly-bys
In courtship
Or mere play.

You taunt wolves-
Peck their hairy tails-
But feast on their feast
Between tricks that
The Haida often recall.

You croak of the glee, the surprise,
The excitement and anger and
Tenderness in the blood
Of every man,
Of every Noah sending forth
A query-
"Is all well
On dry ground?"

You are the shaggy-throated
Roamer, the blue jay-cousin,
And cleverest passerine.
When you mate, it is for life,
And there is no child abuse
In your beak or claw.

You are the clown of the forest,
The king of the pun.

The author

Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).