Red Song of the Passenger Pigeon
About the time the beehive turns into a papery cathedral
and closes its door on that last roving drone steeped in lavender
when blue dims the light on the glinting dogwood
licking wounds in the diminishing air
and she folds the last newspaper into a globe of rectangles
and fog unrolls from the mountains clothing us
in Sunday robes
and I remember I wanted to tell you something
about rain and how language is flat origami, creased and spread open,
creased and spread in the seams of war
even though I love you and our bodies
are drenched together with starry atmosphere
and we fold the headlines together
crossfire and coffee grounds, apple core on page 6 and wildfire
held in the creases of douglas fir bark large enough to fold
our bodies into sideways making us thousand year old
passenger pigeons igniting the sky with fire and feather
and I wouldn’t check the time on my phone or see if you
texted me your undying commitment to love me back
through an evening so crumpled air sweeps away the history
of shell and perch and we live an eggless existence
our bodies bare and blue of sky and wolf
beaten in the gentle primrose cloud
that colors us the chiaroscuro blues of dusk
in the end of another beginning when the passenger pigeon
burned sunset into a migrating wilderness of survival
and loss on a star burning near sun
*
and loss burning on a star near sun
and the golden eye of the sky’s address
burning paper and bodies through the child’s looking glass
while a civilization is asleep
riding zip code air draft
until even god is endangered by the excessive grave yard
waiving its rights for spiritual petition
the ground opens for you until death is crowned
into extinction the loss of loss
forgive the ghosts their desire to come back
black rhinoceros tusk a cleft in time’s sheet drying on the line
a ray of sun among the billowing edges or
a stack of checkers ending all movement
*
a stack of checkers ending all movement, a crown
of silence, a crown of night
crown of fire
crown of tree
crown of motor
crown of ocean
crown of fist
crown of feathers an old wives tale, feathers weaving a halo
on the death pillow
when we used to die
at home
our spirits crossing the balcony’s threshold, ringing
the song of our passing
through the wind chime, a family relic your mom gave you
to bless the home, the song of death the song
of a thousand winds in a single willow, the song of
pigeons sewing haloes around our dreams
four wind chimes to ward away the spirits
ancient harmony smudged by earth’s thumb
on the wall of everything that ever lived
and came back until it couldn’t / imagine itself again
another way, death crowned an image
death crowned a species
*
death crowned a species
a humid red song, an orthodox
in the wind
chime
Martha died in Cincinnati
the city that sings
she had difficulty breathing, a distinct wheeze
a passerby noted, a disinterest
for entertaining the humans honoring gawking ing ing ing
the species
to be red
to be martha
to be passenger pigeon
you are red
you are martha
you are passenger pigeon
*
you are passenger pigeon
Header image of Billing pair by John James Audubon, the best known illustration of this species, but with scientific errors (1824).