“Gods & Raiders” by Erin Block

How does anything grow up, 

grow feathers, hair, 

spurs on legs to fight for love 

and life 

rolling downhill, stopped dead

by the trunk of a tree. 

How does anything survive 

the hunger of someone else. 

That’s what I ask

when I hunt. 

I spot a robin's nest

near the top of a small spruce 

and I watch her for weeks

as we both sit still as an old rabbit—

waiting for life or death.

But others spot her too,

silhouetted at sundown, 

and this is my lesson

on how to move through the world unseen,

through pines with eyes 

like on a turkey’s head,

always turning. 

Crows find it like I heard they would

my whole life. 

Those rumors you don’t understand 

til you’re older 

and broken enough to care if they’re true. 

My mother told me everything will work out,

but so rarely does it end with anything, 

but someone dying for another, in some way. 

Maybe all death comes from the sky

where we created our gods—

Crows raiding nests,

feeding their babies 

the bodies of babies,

before either has a chance 

to fly.

About Erin Block
She/Her/Hers

Erin Block works as a librarian and lives in a cabin in Colorado where she hunts, fishes, forages, and gardens. Her writing has been published in CutBank Literary Journal, The Rumpus, Guernica and Gray's Sporting Journal, among others.