The bird and the hour
After Billy Collins “Litany”

We are the bird and the hour, the session 

           and the fee. We know we are the commute 

and the dream, but we are also the trees in Central Park 

           and the eyes of the feral girl.

We are even the boiled-wool blanket 

           covering her shoulders. We are the bird 

in flight, the bird on its perch; we might even be the hummingbird

           tuning its magic stillness, treading air, but let’s be clear:

we are not the birds in formation flying south or north.

           We have never been a chapter in a textbook 

or even a case study in a handout. We could be an out-of-print 

           book found at a street sale but probably not the unframed 

print in a bin farther down that same street.

           I like to think of us as the fire between the logs, the grain 

in the wood, and the way we don’t hear a squeak 

           in the newly repaired gate. We can be the tapered fingers 

of the unusually tall Japanese pastry chef, the open mouths 

           of the choir, the boarding pass for the flight home.

Can we be pastries on display in the bakery window 

           and the man who stops to admire them?

Okay, I know, let’s be the children who watch the man 

           looking at the pastries as he decides, Not today, 

and walks on carrying his closed umbrella.