Under the cover
of another darkly
dawning day in December,
I can just make out
the distant shapes
of dozens of hectoring
arboreal animals—
but despite the barren
blankness which
surrounds them,
their incessant clamor
in the snarl of branches
is clear and bright
and new and urgent.
At the end of the year,
they sing to one other,
not of the new
world to come
hereafter, but,
over and over,
of all that came before—
distilled
to a fusillade of one
repeating word.
Being a poor excuse
for bird, I myself
am not sure,
but I think that word
must be immemorial:
that which must not
be forgotten,
but cannot be
remembered, either.
