For some minutes my mind knows only a silent stillness within, a meditation without effort, a celebration of occasion. Slowly my vision focuses on a bird of red-streaked, chocolate-covered feathers and bright orange beak... I have been watching her a long while now without registering, labeling or defining her particular condensation of being, taking her as much for granted as she appears to take me. So beautiful. So natural. A bird in a tree.
floating indifferent in eddies of
rooftop air, circling the black
chimney-cowls,
a spring night entered
my mind through the tight-closed window,
wearing
a loose Russian shirt of
light silk.
For this, then,
that slanting
line was left, that crack, the pane
never replaced.