The Birds

    Untouched by other worlds
    they preen in high-up haven boughs
    scramble upside down
    in shadowed leaves and light.
    All day long
    the murmur of indolent birds.
    In the musket blaze
    of flowering kowhai
    bellbirds flit and gorge
    on pendulums of clustered
    yellow trumpets.
    Chatterbox larks
    rise up to their aerial kingdom,
    orbit in blue meadows
    proclaim from their high up pulpits.
    But no one is listening.
    Waders stalk the hem of sea—
    white-laced and whispering
    its same old cadences and songs-
    and look, an ocean wanderer
    come to rest
    bleached bones, ragged feather flag
    a broken yellow wing.
    Here on these black sands
    that were once mountains
    everything finds its end.
    I once held your hands here
    the thin bones
    while you wept all
    your griefs at the sea.
    Oh my dear
    Oh my dear

    At dusk the bats will reign.

       – Jogyata.