i want a requiem by a requiem for

(birdfolk in the Xingqinggong Park and elsewhere)

sparrows and brownie song thrushes moiling

rustling blades panicles scattered tree nuts

fallen leaves taking death with such light heart

they have gone live again flickering flames

like acorns and filberts fed by sun-eating leaves

they’ve made themselves plump as pearls

ortolans in dark enclosures

spared from solastalgia 

by the absence of windows

all day all night the only

function of their life

is putting fat on bones

for men to fatten on them

i want to make a kind of art where the human

is not sovereign my heart is the architecture 

of the bowerbird look to nature for its artful 

forms admire nature’s art on its own terms

magpies anthologize their own ornithologies

pied potpourris and gallimaufries

birds of Gaza have to find

alternative passages

in times of war

people who cannot escape

shouldn’t keep song

-birds caged

that’s a white heron in withered iris blades

in the heart of the lake that’s a black heron 

are there black herons or is it a swan

or is it a dark backlit grey blue green burn

a bird-shaped hole into white misty light

still it rises infinitely large infinitely light

there are poets who take 

birds’ plight personally

philomela bound to sing

suffering of the world

songs without words

some poets don’t care

where other poets take

the bird poems the only

thing they think is cool

with birds in poems

is shooting them

little tufted titmice flirt in maples fluttering down 

stars aflame and samaras smaller than winged 

seeds they flutter down and up forth and back 

tilting deep rust miters turning black-and-white cheeks 

windchiming shaking capes sky-blue bay-blue 

blue of the heaventree’s succulent starfruits 

a bird disappeared

mostly likely 

named after the new 

moon called back

to build a winter

nest hidden in dark

tomorrow there

will be a sliver

of silver light

noumenia 

numenius 

wade shoreward

nest on islands

darker patches 

are seas on the moon

it has wings invisible

like the soul like 

a Golden Snitch

smithed from snow

in ether that may 

or may not exist

hovering fluttering

away from the Earth

one little tit’s wing’s

length each long year

till it too is gone

till its dark or bright

wingbeats no longer

tears the tumultuous

heart of Earthseas

up and shatters it

white pigeons pearl-necked rainbow-necked pigeons

sweep the floor clear of scattered edible stars

and wing back to beheaded pines balconies

awnings windowsills veiled chambers behind

violet misty trees across the lake mallard ducks

with malachite sides twist back and bury their heads

they look so warm

so cozy in that doze

so peaceful so at ease

they don’t need

to take feather

pillows from anybody

else still the other day

in another park’s lake 

three ducks and two geese

disappeared there was

a rumor one couldn’t know

what to believe some men

strong and violent came 

snatched them from water

bending back their wings

a green peacock was sighted by me around here

about this same season my first year of college 

the day after it came again to forage i came 

nearer and nearer to videotape it zoom in on

the malachite sapphire and topaz tail feathers

stay i cried quietly it did not flinch from my gaze

the year after it 

did not appear

after the year after

the year after that

it disappeared

year after year

Nov 22, 2024