Away with the birds
Away with the birds! I was away.
Or so they said. But, ah! In truth,
the mind was a nineteenth-century
valetudinarian—chairbound,
earthbound—beholding the garden
in which the seasons played
their part remorselessly. I watched
the birds with no time for me.
Away they went. And although they
did not love me and had, no doubt,
better places to be, I grieved for
my birds. Such is the quality of desire.
And although I rail at others’ dreams,
I must tell you of the night a man
came to me and presented a plate
on which all good things were laid.
O, my friends—for once, I ate.
And what was left was this gift:
the figure of a small bird, so artlessly
rendered I could hear its bounding heart.
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