I know that birds have a sound;
I know that "sound" has meaning.
In the weeks before the silence, summer
flushed the blackbird city every time I passed beneath.
The fickle tree may do this yet, may stain the sky
with rocketing bodies,
but if their shadows do not flicker
on the windless dust before me,
they might as well be nested.
Gone is the whispered warning
of the wet plates fleeing the dish rack;
gone the good purpose of rain, radios.
In this new world of useless names,
only the dark feels the same.
photograph by Gero
