And the Birds

are what I miss most --
the teeming onyx clouds
in the evening of the year.

Half-mile snakes
slithered through the sky
with winged black scales.

And the birds would fall
upon the skeletal trees,
covering them with dark leaves

that shivered even
when the wind was still.
After dark, when the outlines

of their bodies had been lost
in the tide of the night sky,
tiny voices flittered through the chilled air

to my half-asleep ears.
And the birds don't sing
me to sleep in this warm place,

but they meet me each night,
shadowing the skies of my dreams.

A. Popp
1994

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