Scarlet Tanager, Saratoga Springs

When you returned trom that wondertul summer in the south
to find pond and lake icily indiferent to your thirst,
mounds of snow waiting to complete your burial,
every shitless wood unprepared fo provide a green meal,
you had no strength or time to tell us about it or complain in the usual way:
while your wings in rhythmic memory still answered the wind's buffeting
and you shook the sea-salt trom your teathers and the Sun and stars out of your eyes,
too tired, you clung to the lowest bough making your only possible statement
Scarlet on white,
a speech long interpreted
as bloody tact or threat.

Snow's diminishing was now certain. In a tew weeks, if you survived,
you tound tood served by the repentant blossoming wood.
And then, your blood-colour furled, you flew to the highest bough and you sang
in detail, without violence, a civilized version of your story.