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.