"Recollections of Dead Spirits"
The next time I fly home,
the breeze will have just begun
thieving the birches. They
will bray like pack mules
as they bend against the wind.
They will cover dirt over
their secrets with the precision
of children, slender and bare
as arm bones. Gone
is that forest where I last heard
God bellowing in the boughs.
I still shiver with the memory
of the wind’s duck and dive
against my face, the sharp give
of stones beneath my slippers.
Night: a friend wears a black cloak.
It hoods her luminous brown hair.
A candle glows before her parted lips;
a hand shields them both. Come
and listen; her voice rings
with benediction.
I heard, as the birches kneeled
to meet me. I believed, and then
the osteomorphic wood shook
itself still, and nothing was
any more transformed. Ever
since, I have been a thrush
circling for a nest that never
expects to be found.
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