The Birds Have Come

The birds have come and
    taken the love for you
        I carried like a stolen treasure.

         They flew just over my head
    as I walked on the dawn beach
and so softly I almost
    did not notice them. Two sparrows,
        was it? or perhaps two
             finches, their red polls
        the badge of the heart. I had

    only a moment to think.
I had been watching herons,
    those long-legged fishers,
        stalk the incoming tide.
            Longing with its load

         of incessant possibility
    had entered my heart. Sunrise had made
a prism of the sky. Then,
    shadows, phrases, sibilants

        of words above my head.
            Startled, I looked up
        and heard, echoing in
    the draft of their wings,

We have taken
    your burden from you.
            You are free.

        I walked on, bereft and blessed,
    light-headed, my heart
beating and only that.

Published in The Blue Sofa Review