Black bird, black voice,
almost the shadow of a voice,
so kind to this tired summer sky -
a rim of night around it -
almost an echo of today,
all the days since that first
soft guttural disaster
gave us 'apple' and 'tree'
and all that transpired thereafter
in the city of the tongue.

Blackbird, so old, so young, so
happy to be stricken with a song
you can never choose away from.