Called "Where We Are."
It takes its image from bead.
That's venerable, not out.
He talks about life being like a bird flying through a hall,
coming into a hall in the light from moment to then.
Like this.
Expand.
"Where We Are."
A man tears a chunk of bread off the brown loaf
and wipes the gravy from his plate.
Around him at the long table, friends fill their mouths
with duck and roast pork, fill their cups
from pitchers of wine.
Hearing a high twittering, the man
looks to see a bird, black with a white patch beneath its beak,
flying the length of the hall, having flown
in by a window over the door.
As straight as a taut string, the bird
flies beneath the roof beams.
As the firelight flings its shadow against the ceiling,
the man pauses.
One hand holds the bread, the other rests upon the table,
and watches the bird.
Perhaps, a swift fly through the window
at the far end of the room.
He begins to point it out to his friends,
but one is telling hunting stories, as another describes
the best way to butcher a pig.
The man shoves the bread in his mouth,
then slaps his hand down hard on the thigh of the woman seated
beside him, squeezes his fingers to feel the firm muscles
and tendons beneath the fabric of her dress.
A huge dog snores on a stone hearth by the fire.
From the window comes the clicking of pine needles,
blown against the glass by an October wind.
A Half Moon hurries along behind scattered clouds,
while the forest of black spruce and leafless maple and birch
surrounds the long hall the way a single rock can
be surrounded by a river.
This is where we are in history, to think the table will remain
full, to think the forest will remain where we have pushed
it, to think our bubble of good fortune
will save us from the night.
A bird flies in from the dark, flits across the lighted hall,
and disappears.