Emblems

Who turns to the window, points
at a line of feathered bodies
ranged like an aria on a stave?

Who wants to know which one
carries in its beak the missing
charm to complete her life,

which one will fly
into the trees to sing a song
of greatest enchantment?

The price of listening
is either the song itself,
or a heart transformed

to granite. A mountain stands
in the pockmarked background,
littered with burial caves

and dreamlike vegetation—
Who has ever returned un-
changed from those heights?

 

In response to Via Negativa: Birds on a Wire.

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