In early March,
the small shock
of a cardinal
appearing
like a flame before me—welcome
but undeserved.
I watch as his dart-quick
perfect angles
of arrow-sharp red
and yellow
maneuver onto the uppermost branch
of the still-bare catalpa
outside my window.
But
when he starts to sing
in his foreign language
the first refrain
of a long responsorial,
the rest of the congregation below—
all tooth-aches
and scar-tissue,
all still dressed in their
somber brown
and gray graveclothes—
look puzzled, at best
by the echoing missive.
The groggy, the undead,
those fiercely unprepared
for a sermon
would inevitably mistake
any gospel
for braggadocio;
What earthly utility
could exist,
they would wonder,
in crowing like this,
so early in the morning,
about something only he
was made to know?
