A bird lands outside
but vanishes before I can see
what kind of bird it is.
It’s just gone — no flying, no falling.
All the other birds are gone soon after.

Dawn bleeds up across the East.
All morning I miss hearing the birds.
All morning people talk,
stop talking, start again.

At the library
I hear someone wailing that
words are falling out of the dictionary.
They can’t even say what words they are.

I watched a word I used to love
fall onto the floor and become lost,
wingless and tongueless in the pile.

The ants are picking them up
as if they were birdseed
and taking them
deep into their hills.

It’s better not to know
what they do there.

Welcome to the morning
when we can be afraid
without knowing,
and we dare not learn
enough to mourn.

Ignorance is our sole blessing —
we can’t mourn,
tear our clothes and roll in the ashes,
when we cannot say
what it is we are missing.