Raven in the Wood

“We heard that if you split a raven’s tongue, it’ll talk like a parrot,” said the beautiful girl as she studied my raven drawings. 

My breath caught and fluttered in my throat like a trapped bird. 

She’d already told me that she used to steal raven nestlings in Ruidoso, where she was raised up. Then she cut her eyes at me, “but that didn’t sound like fun, so we didn’t do it.” 

Raven in the wood, carved into Ponderosa pine by Beth Surdut

Raven’s eye watched me as he appeared in the piece of wood I was carving. I tapped away at the chisel, bringing him out to join my clan. 
 He asked me,
“Why would I want to talk like a parrot?”

 www.listeningtoraven.com