You must take your heart, that slab of meat,
your comb of mind, its goo, its bees,
that business with the paladin, your papers
disordered as your thoughts and clothes,
you must take the snow that whips around
the untied laces of your shoe, the sole
that’s come unstitched and slaps the sand, the mwwud, the steps
up to the church above the cliffs,
you must take your children, your mother and your dog
and your dog who died, and tins of food and bags of seed
for birds who trail your heart’s dumb cavalcade
through this forest of leafless trees, then birds who go ahead of you
like your children once pelted to the end of the road
where you shouted for them to stop and wait, the birds
you do not know the name of, a visitor here, to all of this,
whose ways you come to know, and sing.
