Adarna

When the story begins, everything 
          languishes—

Crops wither; the falconets are stunned,
         felted tufts on dry branches. The hornbill 

forgets to mark the moist
        forest hours with its call. In the story,

a king also languishes in bed, under
        canopies of moldy velvet. 
        
Someone must bring back the song
       of an enchanted bird, escaping a fate of

stone. Someone must smart from the kind
       of wound that keeps one awake to possibility 

despite recurring dreams of death—
        from which there is, of course, no cure.