In Conversation

We sat in the room where so often we have talked.
"Listen,' you said, your head and fingertips angled
to the window, last daylight fading from your lips.
You got up to open the window then stood against it,
your burgundy dress a cross-shape as you reached
to widen the velvet curtains. I saw the lampshade's
clay-and-honey glow, the orange flare of the fire
and, as you moved back to your chair, that distant
lit room amidst the dark high cluster of roofs.
Now we could hear the blackbirds more clearly —
the two of them half-speaking, half-singing, through
twilight, answering each bell-shaped flourish
of notes. In between, silences, as if of meditation,
fresh sounds welling up from some calm still space
then lifting into air, streaming through coolness —
to disappear, to be renewed, until the dance
is fulfilled and ends in a rich silence.
And here,
a little later, we still sit: both silent, hearing
the clock, our own heartbeats, and the soft swinging
of the paper lamp in a breeze that foretells summer.