The Poem that Inspired the Band -- How Birds Work
by Paula Cisewski

A dream in a color of flight.
It is easy to forget birds
except it is day and they whistle.
I was dragging something with wings
still so very small and then
they woke me up!
Hummingbirds hanging there
don't really stop time.
And a flower, even a red
flower, isn't a memory.
Birds! Am I being unfaithful to time?
Who with a ribbon tied to its leg
still won't let me catch up.
I must leave my body to get there, leave now.
Come back with a twig on fire.
Where they pecked my breadcrumb trail.
Leather glove and blindfold, all birds be mine!
Calling, calling. Don't stay gone.
Even on a small and isolated island
no scientist can keep an accurate count
of the native thrushes. If you do catch one
and cut it open, you still
won't understand it any better.
Birds consist largely of air,
          pockets in the bone.
Humans consist largely of memory,
          Buoyed to now when we long
for the birds. We weep for the birds
busy remembering and downing their nests.
Busy forgetting their safety for roadkill.
How do I circle this nothing
and grow hungry for? A bird would not.
New species making homes in the wrong climate.
Teach them a word. Hello. Home.
How dainty they seem and their beaks pull meat.
Of the sky again or singing and hidden.
Who was promised wings. We
will be birds in sleep
and in forever sleep which we remember
under memory. No hands. Birds
when their little bodies
probably won't stay now.
A poor clavicle fused for wishing.
To be put just here. Now just here.
Then a bird pops out of a clock.

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