We, the Ravens

We are Ravens. Look at us. We are the mysterious, the adored, the companion of poets. We are the revered, the feared, the bringer of omens. We sit there, high on our perch. Quietly contemplating on our beauty. Comparing the creatures that pass beneath us. Watching. Judging. Proud.

Yet beneath that glamour, we are nothing more than scavengers. We are opportunists. Not willing or capable to acquire our daily bread on our own. We wait. We watch. Then we eat the scraps. We feed on the garbage this world offers us, not realizing that what we eat is waste. Then again, maybe we do realize that. But we eat it anyway.

Sad, don't you think? That all our beauty, all our greatness, are nothing but a glamour. And after the spell has been stripped away, we are exposed as the filthy creatures that we are. This realization had caused me to pause. I cannot fight my own nature. What was it that I had to do with this thought? I learned. I became wiser. But to what end? This revelation had caused me to despair. And I wandered. And I sought. And I cried out into the night. But the cold merely swallowed my voice. The darkness just swallowed me whole.

Then I saw the King.

The King sat not on His throne, but walked among His people. And I called out to Him. And He stopped, and beckoned me to Him. "Rest, Raven," He told me. And He offered me His arm.
"You created me," I accused Him, refusing to land on his arm.
"I did," He replied.
"Why?"
"Because it pleases Me."
"Why would it please You to create a flawed and filthy creature?"
"You are beautiful and poetic."
"And a scavenger! A trash-eater. A scourer of waste!"
The King smiled kindly at me and lifted his arm higher, and closer to me. "Come, Raven, find rest in Me."
Tired from flying all night, and tired from screaming, I landed reluctantly on His intricately embroidered sleeve. With me on His arm, the King walked down the forest path.
"Will you help Me find My ring?" He asked me.
"Where did You lose it?"
"Somewhere in the forest. You know the forest, don't you, Raven?"
"To an extent."
"Then find it," He said, lifting me up in the air.
"I don't have my answers yet."
The King smiled. "Honor your King, Raven. Find Me My ring."

It didn't take me long to find the King's ring. It was mixed with a pile of dead leaves not far from where I usually perch. Returning to the King, I dropped the gold ring on His open palm.
"Well done, scavenger," He said.
I tilted my head and fixed an eye on Him. "Was this what You made me for?"
The King once again smiled His benevolent smile and said, "Do not question My purposes for You. For you will never understand them. Just know that My plans for you are good and wonderful. And forget not, Raven, that I have given you wisdom, that You may discern the treasure from the trash."
I bowed before the King. My burden, lifted from me.
"The forest is littered with treasures," the King continued. "Some of those treasures don't even know they're valuable. But you see some of them, don't you, Raven?"
I nodded.
"Then go. Find them and bring them to Me."

Go...
Find them...
And bring them to Me.