take nothing

  

 .

The birds don't alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying. They leave
nothing to trace. It is our own
astonishment collects
in chill air. Be glad.

They equal their due
moment never begging,
and enter ours
without parting day. See
how three birds in a winter tree
make the tree barer.

Two fly away, and new rooms
open in December.
Give up what you guessed
about a whirring heart, the little
beaks and claws, their constant hunger.
We are the nervous ones.

If even one of our violent number
could be gentle
long enough that one of them
found it safe inside
our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze,
who wouldn't hear
what singing completes us?


—Li-Young Lee
praise them
Book of My Nights

 

 

.

 

In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;

But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four 

hills and a cloud.


—Wallace Stevens

Of the Surface of Things, excerpt

.