A Song in the Eaves

In your mother’s house
The oven door is rusted shut
And everything is undercut
By a veil of sadness ponderous
and stitched into the family rug
are dirty footsteps, angry words
that crept in, flew in with the birds
that roost in rooftop hides beak-dug
pecked and furnished with hoarded twigs
to things that grew and things that hatched
and flapped and sang and fed on figs
the family had their eyes upon
and for that theft received a gift
unnoticed, unceremonious, but free -
a joyful song of spring, of sun, of leafy love
of things all one, the lofty dove,
the feral pigeon, the tiny wrens
and all that feed and live and die
and sing and breed, and their hatchlings
sing their songs again
from eaves of houses, leaves of trees
sing their song of spring sun and summer breeze.

So when your days are fading
And your last words are said
When the plans that you were making
All fade inside your head
Remember the face of those you fed
Remember them, your undertaking;
They will walk the earth
Continue in your dragging steps
With your memory in their skin.
They will sing the song you sang,
Louder for you, longer, further,
They will make a nest
To hatch the dreams you laid
Seventy springs ago
And who they are
And what they know
They owe to you.
To your wings.
To your talons.
To the love in your beady eyes.
Remember this
As your bones
Meet the soil.