Little Elegy

THERE was a place when we were young
where winter woods were filled with song.

The black-capped chickadees played there
in crystal or in snowy air.

Once beneath the flying skies
we ran with white stars in our eyes.

I climbed the zig of the fence to see
a blizzard-merry chickadee.

You climbed the zag of the fence to look.
By the frozen-throated pine-wood brook

we pushed the snow off with our mittens,
each on the topmost rail. And kittens,

puppies, and calves, and well-trained mice
vanished in our minds like ice

under spring freshets. There we were
stung by the drive of starry air,

both of us with hearts gone big,
you on zag and I on zig,

staring at a bird-throat black
lying little on his back.

We picked him up. Aghast, you said,
“Who did it:?" I said, “Look, he’s dead.

You dropped your mittens. I said, “You’ve dropped
your mittens.” You said, “His heart has stopped.

Who did it?” We looked at silver ground,
and the gentle pines were all around,

but we saw a big boy’s hobnailed track
coming here and going back.

The other birds were shaking snow
gayly into the drifts below.

While the silver flakes went storming by,
you said, your face turned up to sky,

‘All of a sudden he stopped singing.”
Scowling because the snow was stinging,

we put him safely in my pocket,
folded wing and quiet socket.

You let me take him home to bury:
your eyes were kind of in a hurry.