What strange irony, that
After years of admiration
Of that dark harbinger
Which fosters abysmal notions
I write of elegance found
In their decided slowness

Irony, not in the writing
But in the experience soon after
In all my life, not fifty feet
Or less, has ever separated us
Except on this strange day

Late for work, and swiftly through the door
[House guests often upset one's schedule]
Out then, to that vacant country road
Where, found feasting, and lifting away
The Raven cannot alight fast enough

First in my life, I can almost touch
Only six feet away, perhaps less
But sadly the encounter happens this way
There, at one hundred miles an hour
Ensuring this, that Raven's last day

And on a sunny, summer evening
With hardly a cloud in the sky
As I pass by that black roadside lump
Traversing my path in reverse
There is thunder overhead
And rain begins, randomly, to pour