Something has descended
   like feathered prophecy.
         Someone has offered the world
   a bowl of frozen tears,

has traced the veins and edges
   of leaves with furred ink.
         The staff is stiff as the strings
   of a lute.

And, day by day, the tiny windows
   crack their cardboard frames
      seizing the frail light. The sun,
   moving through

these waxy squares, undiminished
   as a word passing
         from mind to speech.
   Every breath a birth,

a stir of floating limbs within me.
   I stay up late and waken early
         to feel beneath my feet
   the silence coming.