kniteracy | The Sea Birds

The Sea Birds

No light except the stars, but from the cliff
I saw in motion, out on the rolling waves,
The white sea birds that swim beyond the surf.
Their movements made a pattern on the mauve
Contorted stretch of cold, corrosive water,
Where even the images of stars dissolve.
When I had thought the birds were fixed in order,
I saw the swimming rim of their starlit ring
Minutely swerve and spiral toward the center.
The birds that had been swimming in between
Were shuttled outward on a wheel of light,
Reflecting, like the sea, the stars' design.
I paused, and looked, and saw a star burn out
And sink back into space as through a fissure.
It was an ancient word without a thought.
Perhaps birds move in pattern for the measure
It imposes on the ruptured waves at night;
Perhaps they spiral purely for their pleasure.
While I was trying to untie this knot,
A motion in the motion of the weather
Turned, and the birds turned too and tore the net
I knitted for them (a star had torn another
I had knitted for stars). I saw them climb the gale
That drove small arrows in through every feather.
One by one they spread their flapping sails.
I think the birds are moving in a school
With restless birds above a freezing pool,
And no one shall put salt on their bright tails.

-Van K. Brock