The tiny scene's in 'concert'
but it's silent—they're just trying

not to eat each other. Beak
locked, with his glare the owl mocks
us, not a hard-rock-candy string
of resting songbirds. What it takes

merely to hold one's place
counts when painting oil on copper,
attributing the skittish past,
or when a flock, rising from one

wire, snaps it like a bowstring
skyward across the only power
line by which two thousand folks
shun winter, flapping closer.