From one hill to another extended
some grey clouds like clothes hanging on wire.
They hide the sun in their pockets and sleeves
making the day feel sad and depressed.
The birds with their beaks are pecking at them
in search of illumination and unfettered horizons
Their love for light and for the clean blue-sky,
has earned them wings and blessed their flight.
What’s your name
I asked
Omnibird
Said it in surroundsound
No primadonnas among us
One sounds like another of its kind
And doesn’t mind the rhyme
It’s the art of singing in a choir
Even when singing solo
Petition re petition
A signature campaign
Second sopranos
Clamoring to be first
Every evening the trees inhale birds
Swirling back home a warm shawl
But I still wait for my perch in your arms
I would peg so lightly the sheets of your night flights
We would travel in one mind your old lands my new skies
And every morning you would breathe me fly
The birds knew. They heard Earth
thinking about a shift, a shrug. They
repaired to the stability of air, where
they might rest assured on fine
individual engineering. On alleged
ground, in our immense, inappropriate
structures, we were by comparison large
in our self-regard though miniature in
our soon-to-be shaking skin. Solid ground
is a compelling myth. Our material
condition is liquid when it isn't vaporous
or vacuous. Our feet knew. They felt
Earth pass under us in squirts and waves.
The planet is pieces and paste. It is going
somewhere, we’re on it, and that is that.
Stone weighting my palm
has sprung a cathedral
heart jumps
walking in the flesh of its surpassing grace
groin-vaulted and high as
no bird ever escaped to soar this
high-up—
seamless and
there is no blood
no feather
no bone—
stone cannot make the bird.
Be near enough to the periphery
to discern the wing-settle-sounds
small birds make in thickets,
their halls —
Near enough for red to insist
that you regard it as haw,
rose-leavings
Know, bird-panic sounds
differently to wing-settle’s
soft-rest after the flurry of
flight,
they say —
It held —
Maybe there was no yarn
and you hung the bird-bell
from a delicate thread
Is there anything new under the sun?
Certainly there is.
See how a bird flies, how flowers smile !
I was asleep, dreaming that I could see
The north hills bowed and burdened with the snow,
And the grey-bearded river old and slow,
And the sick silences on vine and tree —
When in upon my loneliness and me
Light rushed, and sweetness tumbled down as though
Windows had opened for white hands to throw
Roses and roses from a balcony.
Oh Bird, imperious for happiness,
For moments gold as arrows in the air,
I am the only dark in all daybreak!
Let loose your avalanche of loveliness
Over my heart, until I am aware
How long I sleep — and sing me wide awake !
When thin-strewn memory I look through,
I see most clearly poor Miss Loo,
Her tabby cat, her cage of birds,
Her nose, her hair--her muffled words,
And how she'd open her green eyes,
As if in some immense surprise,
Whenever as we sat at tea
She made some small remark to me.
It's always drowsy summer when
From out the past she comes again;
The westering sunshine in a pool
Floats in her parlour still and cool;
While the slim bird its lean wires shakes,
As into piercing song it breaks;
Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar
Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar.
Where is my love--
In silence and shadow she lies,Under the April-grey, calm waste of the skies;
And a bird above,
In the darkness tender and clear,
Keeps saying over and over, Love lies here!
Not that she's dead;
Only her soul is flownOut of its last pure earthly mansion;
And cries instead
In the darkness, tender and clear,
Like the voice of a bird in the leaves, Love--love lies here.
No one was with me there--
Happy I was--alone;
Yet from the sunshine suddenly
A joy was gone.
A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from room to room
On restless wing:
Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The narrow solitudes
So strange to him.
So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence my mood estranged
Went grieved away.
There were three cherry trees once,
Grew in a garden all shady;
And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,
Walked a most beautiful lady,
Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet,
But she walking there was by far the most fair--
Lovelier than all else within it,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,
All hanging on stalks light and slender,
And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,
With vows sweet and merry and tender;
A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;