&
they improvise makeshift
nests from the nests
other birds have abandoned,
as well as human garbage,
old bottles, boxes, cans,
&
wrappers with forgotten language
Celia Gilbert
THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS
It
is the winter light that knows us
by the laddering of bark,
by the nubs of buds set
defended and ready.
Arrived in the mountains at the frontier
"There was silence in heaven for about the space
of half an hour,"
that is the silence we know
contemplating our lives:
the child who set out with a magic stone,
the friend who left saying we would be together,
the burning house that set us free.
In
the winter light we are stripped away
"and I am commanded to write these things."
