Christine Hume, p.5



OLD SONG KEEPS ARRIVING

from a rock jetty
        five monks ease their hems
                into the river the same
man by the same local bridge
        in German birds are vulgar
                someone says four views
from the tree are all
        we need here remembering
                a beach would be distant
as eyes filling up for the winter
        which freezes our hair in clumps
                of leaves clanking against ice oaks
the whole way home a Tern
        passes through watching scores
                its eye descants the listening
aspect of the bird reveals this
        we ask it for another instead
                and finger its trembling (we ask it)

1. a rock jetty]broken floes
2. ease]erase
5.] where birds migrate in constellations
9. beach]orchestration]admission
11. freezes]resolves]dissolves
13. home]snowblind
14. watching]zeroing
15. descants]gives way