The patience
of Job, the wanderer’s
twenty years, the virtue
of the wife who nightly
wove a winding sheet
to rip apart at dawn—
The world’s most
bitter wars that lasted
more than decades,
the bodies in the trench
kissing crumpled letters
or photographs goodbye—
The long courtship
and the always waiting,
the sacrifice that ends
with vows at last,
if at the brink
of the grave—
The hundred-thousand-
thousand times wings fold:
and we’ll attach on flimsy
strings these patterned
birds, these bits of prayer
set to flutter in the wind—