Madison Fay
Madison Fay is an emerging poet based in Michigan, where they spend their days writing, painting, and shoveling snow. With a Master's in English Literature and a Bachelor's in Creative Writing, Madison Fay has years of writing and workshopping experience, as well as some publications. Madison Fay is the Editor in Chief at Mycelium Magazine, a small online indie lit mag that specializes in the weird, absurd, and uncanny, and they are the head narrative writer and content manager for Trans Folks Walking, an indie video game currently in production at the Amatryx Gaming Studio Lab at the University at Buffalo. Madison Fay finds inspiration in the quotidian and in the spiritual realm to fuel much of their writing. Madison Fay's pronouns are they/them, and they are neurodivergant and disabled.
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Look for Rain When the Crow Flies Low
I know what it means to see the fresh
light green and un-maulable underbellies of sycamore leaves.
I speak the language of chair squeaks and
catchy drawers and sticky doors.
My love affair with the pale rising moon gave me
full fluency in divination. I have experienced
the downfall of seagulls and the danger of them on land.
When the crow flies low she whispers in my ear the weather forecast
and I hear her.
But I cannot decipher the language of the wind
as it blows through the holes in my ears,
whistles under my armpits and carries away
grocery lists written on birch bark.
Rain drops itself with a certain predicticality- gives me a chance to
prepare because it believes it needs to be prepared for. Wind needs no
affirmation, needs no nursery rhymes. There is no bird willing to lower itself
to become false-prophet and forecast in a language spoken by no-one.
Wind is something my body will hear regardless, unprepared
(disheveled) and never needing assurance of itself or of the way it drips
when i ignore (my) signs.
light green and un-maulable underbellies of sycamore leaves.
I speak the language of chair squeaks and
catchy drawers and sticky doors.
My love affair with the pale rising moon gave me
full fluency in divination. I have experienced
the downfall of seagulls and the danger of them on land.
When the crow flies low she whispers in my ear the weather forecast
and I hear her.
But I cannot decipher the language of the wind
as it blows through the holes in my ears,
whistles under my armpits and carries away
grocery lists written on birch bark.
Rain drops itself with a certain predicticality- gives me a chance to
prepare because it believes it needs to be prepared for. Wind needs no
affirmation, needs no nursery rhymes. There is no bird willing to lower itself
to become false-prophet and forecast in a language spoken by no-one.
Wind is something my body will hear regardless, unprepared
(disheveled) and never needing assurance of itself or of the way it drips
when i ignore (my) signs.
Commentary
Madison on "Look for Rain When the Crow Flies Low":
For my poem “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low,” my main inspiration was, as with many of my poems, my upbringing on the family farm. I grew up among a milieu of sayings, some short little quips aimed at things like misbehaviors and others that were tied to the land and what it might bring. “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low” is a form of instructions for divining the next rainfall, all of which I learned while growing up. I found the experience of prediction to be magical; that I could look at my neighborhood trees and guess with relative accuracy when it would rain next was certainly a spiritual moment. I wanted to use the poem to convey this, but also to convey that there are things that have no predicticality, such as wind. I often find myself wishing for the divining powers required to understand wind, but it is lost on me. “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low” is a poem born out of a simultaneous satisfaction and desire.
EIC Christine Taylor on "Look for Rain When the Crow Flies Low":
When Madison's poem came over the transom, I immediately fell in love with the language and rhythm of the piece: the sense of wonder and natural magic speak strongly here. I love the tension between events that are predictable and those that are unexpected/unannounced and how divination dwells in this tension as we try to make sense of the world.
For my poem “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low,” my main inspiration was, as with many of my poems, my upbringing on the family farm. I grew up among a milieu of sayings, some short little quips aimed at things like misbehaviors and others that were tied to the land and what it might bring. “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low” is a form of instructions for divining the next rainfall, all of which I learned while growing up. I found the experience of prediction to be magical; that I could look at my neighborhood trees and guess with relative accuracy when it would rain next was certainly a spiritual moment. I wanted to use the poem to convey this, but also to convey that there are things that have no predicticality, such as wind. I often find myself wishing for the divining powers required to understand wind, but it is lost on me. “Look for Rain when the Crow Flies Low” is a poem born out of a simultaneous satisfaction and desire.
EIC Christine Taylor on "Look for Rain When the Crow Flies Low":
When Madison's poem came over the transom, I immediately fell in love with the language and rhythm of the piece: the sense of wonder and natural magic speak strongly here. I love the tension between events that are predictable and those that are unexpected/unannounced and how divination dwells in this tension as we try to make sense of the world.