Everywhere the ice,
And the singing of the last starling on the rotting phone wire
Echoing vibrant over the crusted field
Even to the rough-shoveled dust holding the last of our kind
Long given over to silence.

And so the starling sings in sonatas strange and wild,
Each an anthem ancient in remembrance of desire and loss.
Each a punctuated coda; a siren plea to the gathering dark,
Each a hymn to one last, desolate longing.

Having practiced quite forever, his kind’s warm welcome of forever,
The starling knows and sweetly greets what we will have forgot:
A dawn without us, and summers, autumns; time without us, ever and ever
Until the last star-laced singer, in mid-song, falls,
silent into ice.