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The Least Little Birds of the East
Morning
Soon the sun
but still the sounds mix
an industrial throb electrical
generation keeps lights lighted
and a beating beneath the flimsy floor
still the birds still
the sweet birds sing
(from Alfred of of Rievaulx:
Do you love this world?
You are greater than this world.)
But nothing is greater than everything
god knows, nothing’s as large as it gets
(Are you blinded by the sun?
You are more blinding than the sun.)
No life so unlivable while it is or
is not beneath the scratched surfaces
of skin a swirl of a starry swirl of blood
(Do you wonder about the motion of the stars?
You are above the stars.)
There is beyond a land of ice and lived fragments
scatterings of selves among seeds and Saturdays
when children where they kneel in dirt
demarcate the boundaries the game
the boundaried twins alone alive in love
(Do you hope to unravel the mystery of the beginning of life?
No life began more mysteriously than yours.)
Here at home a hope of color confirmed...
no, begin again with a thing a small suffering
quivering in first light
(Is your mind confused when you try to think about these things?
You yourself are the most confusing of all.)
A sound enters, like a bird a building,
flies through another sound
and comes out intact a light flies through
a different light imagine a red light crossing
through a yellow each retains its own vibration
a road crosses a road neither leads home
a stream enters a river
which is the water of the other
small birds twitter against emerging
a worm of some iniquity writhes
a leaf withers
Evening
I watched a marching band enter the hall
and snake its way forward into the orchestra
and each played its own tunes its own melodies
until the band exited as they had entered from the night
then the orchestra members packed their instruments
to leave the stage through well-marked exits. O sparrow.
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