The cedar waxwing is waxing and waning
from the cedars and over the lake,
with its oomph and flutter, its long
sword wings, its insurrectionist’s black mask.
I could once say “insurrectionist”
with a flourish of hyperbole. I could once
say “mask” and maybe think of Noh,
or Halloween, or hide-and-seek.
Its crest is fiercely blown back,
direct, and joyful in the way of urge, of lust.
It has disguised itself in nondescript brown,
but the blue-gray of sky gradually
overtakes it as if it had hoped to blend there
but couldn’t help but turn to this dramatic life.
Viz., the tail has dipped itself in yellow,
either a caution, or some ecstasy
that releases itself at last. Its voice is so thin
and high-pitched it is prophetic. It climbs a ladder
and trills. Even to say the name, waxwing,
I have to flutter and stumble. I am overcome
by black face-wrappings, swords. I repeat to myself
from the Psalms, The voice of the Lord
breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks
in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
This is what comes of staying still,
I tell myself. So, look at me, a refugee
like all the others, turned away from the worst
toward God knows what. I have traveled
all these miles while the waxwing is dazzling me
with its aeronautics, its pursuit of the mayfly,
order Ephemeroptera, the insect Albrecht Dürer
included in his engraving, called The Holy Family
with the Mayfly, his own mad attempt
to reconcile heaven and earth.