Shore Birds

While I think of them they are growing rare after the distances they have followed all the way to the end for the first time tracing a memory they did not have until they set out to remember it at an hour when all at once it was late and newly silent and the white had turned white around them then they rose in their choir on a single note each of them alone between the pull of the moon and the hummed undertone of the earth below them the glass curtains kept falling around them as they flew in search of their place before they were anywhere and storms winnowed them they flew among the places with towers and passed the tower lights where some vanished with their long legs for wading in shadow others were caught and stayed in the countries of the nets and in the lands of lime twigs some fastened and after the countries of guns at first light fewer of them than I remember would be here to recognize the light of late summer when they found it playing with darkness along the wet sand