A white-crowned sparrow
plucks grubs from a deer skull.
From bone to nest, from nest
to bone as morning blooms
with lilac light, the sparrow flies
to feed her naked hatchlings.
In this way the dead doe
(a winter kill)
by way of the mother’s beak
shares her squirming thoughts
with the blind and flightless:
Take, eat my memory
of the woods. Swallow my swift
witness of this earth. Carry
with your new wings this call:
The forest floor receives us all.
