A bend in the river.
A flaw in the surface.
How many continents
has this lone oriole
crossed to come balance 
on our sagging clothesline,
and what urgent thing 
is he trying to tell us?
That those who could translate
his song are lagging
a thousand miles
behind? Or that those 
who can speak both his tongue 
and ours have not yet
been born, that we will go
into the ground
and a thousand years pass
before their eyes open,
the wayward atoms
of our nests and tongues
having been dispersed, 
reassigned, and repurposed
into their bright,
unforeseeable bodies?