Lately, I’ve been watching them, pecking
furiously at the ground,
then retreating into the eucalyptus,
where they stagger like compasses
before their tiny hearts quit and they drop,
stone-like.
Sometimes my cat
will sniff them and jerk back
as if pierced on the nose by a needle.
In the dark they go on dying.
While burying them I have shoveled newspapers,
their bloody lips decayed, a child’s
lucky penny, a rusted pipe
that goes nowhere, the roots of weeds
tangled like kite strings or hearts . . ..
Tonight, as if for the last time, I hold
my woman’s face. Were I to die, my eyes’ vaults
would crave light. When I go, place a dying spar
row
in my hands. My soul will find a tree to perch
on.
(Ernesto Trejo)
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Based on Topics: Light Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Nature Poems, Faces Poems, Place Poems, Weeds PoemsBased on Keywords: burying, eucalyptus, furiously, pecking, compasses, shoveled, stone-like