Considered Birds

All the birds of the fields consider me,
My posture;
My approximations.

They bathe, half-attendant.

From puddles,
They observe.

I pull my weight upward
Against a lattice of sunlight.

I cough
Ruined engines,
Haul them from my pockets;
Drop them on the shore
Of blacktop meeting shoulder.

The weight of their absence
Describes a golden circle
Around each graveled foot.

God wonders, then,
What weight remains in my shoes
When each step
Pulls a clutch of root and soft tissue from the earth.

I wonder if birds know sadnesses,

Or only differences

In slants of light and shadow;
The presence of passing where
None is normally found.

Then again, in far-apart counties,
Where barn-sides and tree-haunted silos
Lean against our decades,
These endless nights are only moments
To the fields, the mills and rail beds, neighborhoods,
Meanderings
That pass beneath each wing and life-thin clavicle.

I dreamt on my feet, often,
While passing through;
Dreams of barbicans holding moments to themselves.
Dreams of intermingled names
And avenues,
A complication of trackage rights;
An excited dread
Of distant mountains rising up against
The drought of flatlands and horizon
Heading west. And me in no way ready.

When those dreams came, I learned
To shake myself awake
And simply drop. I learned to stare at birds,
Unnerve them in the dawn.

Those well-considered birds
Then rose up unannounced and moved among the clouds
And gathered
Onto the rooftops of houses I have never owned,
Outside of windows never mine.

Their wings were cirrus clouds the clear moon
Shone through;
Stealed away through;
In times and places
Where journeys
Through the wilderness are not necessary,
Shining in the rain through safety glass,
And very far away.

It’s as wearisome, as good,
As anything else planned all along in the mind of God
While we were alone, in the dark,
And had no control of our arms, our legs.