In my bird garden I asked a dove If she mourns lost winter afternoons The sky furiously balming Your brow against the glass Breathing shallow But, with that reluctant mist That warns of life in mirrors Fast evaporating The bird replied Though we are Neither not so cold Nor defined by the shape of rain That we would forego Our easy days Still, when the magpie sings We will find an eave to hide behind Life is fraught Bridges far between The house you build By tumbling roads Will fall one day to the bright stars Of soft, emerging asters You think a bird a fool, but How she watches, how she waits On her flimsy precipice The magpie is a winter mountain
