“At the threshold of the divine, how to know
But indirectly, to hear the static as
Pattern, to hear the rough-edged white noise as song—

Wait, not as song—but to intuit the songbird,
Within the thorn thicket, safe, hidden there.
Every moment is not a time for song or singing.

— Eric Pankey, from “Ash,” Crow-Work (Milkweed Editions, 2015)”