After the Feast at Year's End
       

        —the flash, a low cry,
  a storm took the lights—
where were you when the glass broke?
Were you in the field with a startled heart?
      Earth's axis tipped twice in the dark
& nothing gleamed in a singular way—;
      whoodie-whoo went the owl
in the incense bough while daffodils
      pushed up quite soon
like the thesis in a freshman essay . . .

The dead are patient among the trees,
      visitor greets anti-visitor,
masked chickadee, masked waxwing
(masked waxwing is pretty darn hard to say);
the violent are not carried away,
    they are packaged on Twitter . . .
        Then the body is the broker
      for the wound & the miracle
    (though the wound can't wait
to reveal itself & the miracle
    knows the exit, in advance—)

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Copyright © 2012 Brenda Hillman All rights reserved
from Colorado Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission