Starling Responds
Whose name from whose beak?
Across oceans stuffed with turmoil,
blue as ranges receding, green as seas
of white pine that once began at these shores
and endured farther than anyone dared walk.
That is a darkling place.
The words that might rise
like fortunes within the magic trick
bowling balls of a childhood
stay put.
Instead these ones, in answer to
that tinder. Or are they called tinder
and the others steel?
Flint makes them make a force
that can make a ruin.
Someone will be watching.
From a place neither ocean nor forest,
from a window in a city lit with switches,
from an iceflat screen.
The words in the nowhere
of code. Little on-offs, little digits,
little flashes held in plastic.
The brain: a maze of gaps.
Between particles: the possible.
A bird opens its throat.
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