Virginia Bluebird
Lapis smear and arboretum’s ardor I’ve never
not seen you here. Though if I do see you,
you’re soon gone as God
or gone as God appears to be. Appearing
to be gone’s your party trick and paradox, you
and your micro-flocks of three or four,
gathered in some name invisible
only your wingtips might pronounce—
this counts as hope. It has to.
You are the blue we want but never
learn to speak or treat with. Breathless
thin-air blue, save where the sunset
licks your breast.
Blessed is the branch beneath you,
the blank sky in which you fly
and sing. Lovely, unselfconscious thing.
How do you do it?
