_____

On a clear and cold winter morning,
you sit in an arabesque of dormant branches.
Though a songbird chorus scolds from the bushes below,
your troubles have not seen you yet.

They are searching everywhere.
But you,
my little hawk,
they will not find.

On the dead spike of a split-crown pine,
perched with a frozen rush of cirrus above,
you are free to bear your spirit away through the wind
and into the darkness of the woods.

Still they will hunt for you there.
But you,
my little heart,
they cannot bind.
_____