I

The bird is definitive—:
we do not seek it:
it will elect us.

       II

If it were the hour of the bird
you'd open and know
the eternal moment.

       III

It will never be the same,
our atmosphere:
we uphold the flight
that holds us up.

       IV

The bird is lucid
and lacerates us.
We bleed. No possible
scarring in that
direction.

       V

This bird is plumb:
it architects the real and is the very real.

       VI

We'll never know
such purity:
bird devouring us
while we sing it.

       VII

In light of full flight
we will exist in this bird:
it lives us.

Poemites

a) morning
             No one yet. Roses greet me
             and I greet the silence
             of roses.

b) absence
             No one here
             and clouds.

c) bird
             Wings hanging in
             lightinstant.

d) moon
             Integrality.
             Fixity.

e) Narcissus
             Flower water face
             flower water
             flower.

f) spring
             From not-hope
             occur
             flowers.

g) lake
             Water's
             chill
             tension:
             peace—in—being.

h) expecting
             Open windows.
             Door merely leaning ...

i) vase
             but incommunicant.

j) end
             Absence of roses. The way
             now with no one, to silence.

Challenge

Against the flowers I live
against limits
against appearance pure attention
constructs a countryside with
no more gardens
than essence.

"Seven Bird Poems" previously appeared in LYRIC&.

Brenda Hillman's sixth book of poems, Cascadia, will be published this fall. She is the Holloway Fellow at University of California-Berkeley for 2001.

Orides Fontela, widely considered one of Brazil's most important twentieth-century poets, died in 1998.