Dum Spiro Spero

Come, Lord, and lift the fallen bird Abandoned on the ground; The soul bereft and longing so To have the lost be found… Before the movers came, we found the sparrows' nest concealed inside the chive plant on the patio. And the bald chicks there calling, unfledged, undone. Love, the mean days collecting scored us, and hourly such years: we feel too much assembling what our world got wrong; black artery of wires, branched hazard, rat stinking in the beams. Wrong as your mattress on the floor, walls where the only stud sinks into a metal grief. Take this distance as you go, Love, which is my faith, tedious, steady, like scraping gum from a shoe. Strong as a cobweb, I give you this durable string. Because I remember you: who saves the sparrows; the chicks calling and calling and you who won't forget them; have seen the ghost who rents your eyes dissolve when your face turns to the light. Today, I watched the other birds who lived this winter peppering our tulip tree. The buds' tough seams begin to crack. Ordinary. No sign to read, I know. But while we breathe, we hope. epigraph from "Come Lord And Lift," by T. Merrill