O My Bird

O my bird

I painted you

Much before you came.

A past cadaver

Your shape, your nature

Your songs were recorded

On the page of my mind.

 

Now when you are there

Right in front of me

I find you wrong, strange

I can hear you speaking

Singing in a language

Beyond my image.

My borrowed intellect

From white volumes

Of knowledge

Made me a living dead.

You came, you sang

You sat, you danced, you walked

Nearly in my heart

You went passed

So close, unconquered,

Your being, your tongue

To me was unseen, unheard.