SPEAK TO ME IN THE VOICES OF BIRDS

All the statues
start to talk

all at once
in the voices of various birds.

I watch as their thoughts
take to the skies.

Now they fall silent
or speak only

in raindrops dripping
from foliage.

The rain puts
tears in their eyes

or gives the ends of their
cracked noses a snotty cold.

A few heads lie scattered
at their marbled feet.

Their eyes closed
with lichen.

Their lips sealed
with green.

They say nothing.
Only watch the silence deepen.

An earwig
crawls across an eye.

A passing guide
with a flock of tourists

blah blah blahs
about the lives and lies

the statues
once lived.

And of the what and who
they were.

The statues looked bored
having heard it all before.

Even in Hungarian  and
Bulgarian

"Speak to me again..." I plead
"...in the language of birds!"

But all their thoughts
have flown away.