One thousand birds
return, one
by one,
the
tree-peak rattles
with their quest-
ions
—
Barbed-foot, Electric
-wing, Purple-
tuft, Ratty-
back —
they scratch the
skin, eye
stuck
in
the glow of lighted
bushels.
One,
there, waits
, stick
unmoving, wind,
the smallest
thunder
-clap
; there, one dancing, leaf
to leaf, each
leap a
new
religion:
gods in distance
, time, the nerve
of feeling
height; and one,
too, alighted un-
seen, branch
re-
bounding, feather
released
like a
seed.
This tree is a theater,
container
of wisdoms
gleaned,
calculator
of secret
intrusions.
One
thousand tiny seekers
one by one
communion
here
, a beetle, a
shaded place, they
rest or screech
in that
abundance
numbered by
their visit-
ations;
they give what they
have taken
the great
bush-
el shakes, seconds
recorded
for their
return.
