The bird is an alphabet, it flies  
above us, catch 
as catch can, 
a flock, 
a travel plan. 
Some never touch ground.

And each flight is an arc to buttress the sky, 
a loan to the sky. 
And the little words we make of them, the single feathers, dropped  
for us to recover, 
fall and fall, 
a nimble armor...

Feather, feather of this morning, where does your garden grow  
flying upwind, saying look 
it is safe 
never to land, 
it is better. 
A man full of words

is a garden of weeds, 
and when the weeds grow, 
a garden of snow, 
a necklace of tracks: it was here, my snow owl perhaps.  
Who scared it away? 
I, said the sparrow,

with my need, its arrow. And so here I belong, trespassing, alone, 
in this nation of turns 
not meant to be taken 
I’ve taken. 
A feather, 
pulled from the body or found on the snow
can be dipped into ink 
to make one or more words: possessive, the sun. A pen 
can get drunk, 
having come so far, having so far to go — meadow, 
in vain, imagine, 
the pain

and when he was gone then there was none 

and this is the key to the kingdom.