birds

the root lightning-bolts through the dirt
like stillborn music.  


you press your palms to the cold dirt
as if praying, or lost,
or both.


with your hands
you will learn your way out.


across the water lies hard ground.
in my bones, a blue fruit paste.


we bury or burn our dead. it seems severe, like we forget easily,
but we do not.


the palms and the pines get all mixed up.
i listen for old sounds in the moments where light turns

like spoiled milk or overripe fruit.


the view is magnificent. the distances grow so great
they disappear. i sadden my limbs.  it has always been.

there is a symphony far away,
and a longing that dies by inches.

the birds sing all morning, their songs are psalms of finding berries
despite the frost and the hollowness of their bones.


the world turns and turns and because of this
i mistake lamplight for memory,

dusk-light and smoke for the last supper.


we burn or bury our dead.
what they do not know is what we do not know.


when my bones are dry and my heart is a dirt road,
i will be satisfied.


meanwhile all i could ever reach, the light has betrayed.
i go back and forth between you and the universe.

in the dark i betray myself.

to batten with my hands a single thing
to the exclusion of all others

would be to love.

i watch the trees for the bird that i am.
it's blue with a short beak, red with its last meal.  

it never sings.  
i don't know why

but it stays quiet,
as if it were already burned, or buried,

or both.