The Raven's Gold
by lovethelifeulive
She landed on a statue.
A statue of a man.
She did not know who the man was,
but she knew that as her feet touched the statue,
the golden color would peel off.
She was ugly and black.
She was a raven.
Her wings were dark as night.
And her eyes, warm as ice.
Allen wrote of her, once upon a midnight dreary.
Her wrote of a Raven, but not of her.
She was different.
As dark and cold that she looked,
she was kind and had a heart,
and knew of love.
She picked at the golden slip,
aware that is was not edible.
But the houses around her,
houses not made of brick,
held another breed.
A sad, poor breed.
She wondered if the other breed could use this golden slip.
Because there were many,
and they had none.
She flew with it
to the closest house.
Inside lay a mother and child.
The Raven layed the gold atop the child's chest.
He continued to sleep but the mother awoke
and watched the raven leave.
The raven did this for many nights.
The poor were happy
and held the gold with glee.
She was a popular icon
and the poor could not wait for the next night
or the next morning,
when they would see less gold on the statue.
As it became colder
and fall dripped into winter
there was soon no more gold.
But the people were still happy.
They had more blankets,
and food,
and love to share.
But soon they became restless,
wanting more gold.
So the Raven searched the statue for a morsil of gold.
But found none.
On her final search,
she layed herself against the statues shoulder,
in the darkest time of night.
The child on the street below, watched her.
The Raven felt the slick ice againts the statue
that built up during the time she stayed.
She could only think of how cold she was
and wished that she was able
to use the gold for her own warmth.
Her eyes fell closed.
She stood their for several moments, until she slipped.
She fell to the cement
and red filled through her black feathers.
She only thought of the cold.
Wishing she could be relieved by it.
Her heart beat loudly,
trying to make someone hear,
to make someone find,
and save her.
And someone did.
Almost.
She could only think of cold
and she could only hear her heart.
She closed her eyes once again,
regretting her mistake,
not of helping the poor,
but of falling asleep atop the goldless statue.
She could only think of the cold.
She could only hear her heart,
She could only close her eyes,
when the child came.
He picked her up
in his tiny hands.
Her blood dripped down
the cracks of his fingers.
Now,
she could only think of his kindness, as he was repaying her for hers.
she could only feel the glimmer of sunrise.
as the child warmed her,
releaving her of cold.
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140,804 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
"Because Poe wrote on both" in answer to your little subtitle. And he comes up in your story!
Anyway, this was interesting and cute. A little heavy-handed and contrived, but cute in its overall story.
Contrived because
1) Why is the raven different from others? What makes her different? You just defy lifetimes and eons of traditional portrayals of ravens. Nothing wrong with it, but you can't just say "she was different" and leave it there.
2) And why didn't the poor just scrape off the statue themselves, if they were so eager?
3) She falls from a statue and hits the ground and is covered in blood? Birds fall from very tall trees all the time and are fine because they themselves are so light and at least flap a little on the way down.
4) Why didn't she find shelter?
So I mean contrived in that you've forced the story to be a certain way and it all works out that way nicely, despite what would actually happen if real choices/emotions/decisions were involved. I get that it's kind of a fairy-tale kind of thing, so you can get away with it, but to ignore the alternatives seems a little like cheating.
The format is interesting, but a little hard to read because of the breaks we insert mentally. Like this one
just feels like it's stuttering and not starting or flowing. Poetry should flow. Also the language feels too direct and blunt for the reader to connect with the poetry. Not to say there isn't blunt and direct poetry, but that usually falls under another umbrella.
This was definitely interesting. I love Edgar Allen Poe, so the reference was definitely cool, but anyway I was wondering about the choice of format. I felt like that made it harder to read and a bit more of a headache just because of the length. This is just a personal opinion of course, and if I wasn't reading via this site it might be different. Interesting story, though.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver