from Verses on Bird

I.

Bird-watching weaves in and out of imagined space. Autumn sunlight
Hopes, even hints, that clouds are detaching.
The river is green, a thick soup enriched with terminologies.
It squeezes out the orderly tree lines along the river. If only all these
Trees really belonged to the language--one vowel
Altering its sound track from the backdrop might sing out the surprise of all the world.

No bird, for the bird is not in the trees, on clotheslines, in chimneys.

Those solid feathered wings softly wave in
Events we are eager to net. Bird exists, a flicker,
If you can see through yourself, to follow the next
Desire, its rising, landing, do not blink.


II.

The observer's observation gives way to
The concept of flight accumulated (and reiterated) by the camera.
A curve exhibits the physics of the bird and
These freeze frames follow the wind's trends.
An eye watches another eye through the lens, what it saw
Varies less than the verb.

The bird misses you, you miss the bird.

Maybe one should look for another method by which to uncover the secret of flight
Or study the quietude written in quill long ago:
The stroke gliding and circling pushes you
Down an empty page, a stepless fall, into
Or out of the blue.


III.

All the travel photos could not contain the bird. When wrought
Into a sonata its singing will seem heavy, it will
Not reveal the blush of a freshly cut wound. When reading poetry,
You do not pay attention to the story, even if the background hammers
Out the rhythm of a travelogue with no drama, the daily
Mornings at home, or at dusk, being born, or dying.

The mineral composition of tears is similar to that of the sea.

Therefore nature casually tumbled onto the paper must be twisted
Into unnatural positions. We'll have to deliberately detach the picture from
The cobble stone path, lawn, flower beds below, give up gardening,
Stroll up to the roof, not thinking, and then remember the minute
The bird flew by.

IV.

The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.
From classical fugues to Romanticism, this effort produced
Schubert. When storms attack, the nightjar's cry
Swells. The noble revolution will require great
Sacrifice, yet do not ask me to capture this process on the black
And white keys, nor to switch to another tone.

I could not find two birds with identical pitch.

With no motives to cause it, innocence makes me walk
Into rushing water as if I were brave. Empty space is great, but nothing
Repeats itself there. Whether I do
Or whether or don't; from each, the sum of the piano's voice will rise.
Not to be doubted: bird writes poem, one vowel at a time.


Zhang Er
translated from the Chinese by Eleni Sikelianos and the author

Dulcinea

The description as follows
included a list: "one assurance, no witnesses..."

*

There is a permissible order to the world.
As part of it a bird will seek its prey.
As part of it a bird will spend the best part of the day at rest—
The romance in that errancy—and this
Treatment
As it is permitted in presentation and style.
The bird is the result of an expression of desire
And of refinement.



*

The configuration of it as a he or as
a she
is immaterial to the single vision of the two figures...
Of the figures as we put them
in a story or relationship
like the one between an aesthetic intention and the story that unfolds
in its place. Or the one between
a man and his wife
or an office and
a chief.


*

Again the Dulcinea inexhaustible and worthy.
Like the mountains—like the figure
of a bird
or of a mountain.


Katy Lederer

* * *

The Cuckoo

In the month of Averil
the gowk comes over the hill
in a shower of rain


Anonymous