The sun sets in a muddled bank of cloud,
the evening falling fast on Labor Day.
Five of us around the table:
a Brewer’s blackbird, a jack pine,
a stone, and Emily and me.
We served red berries and a trout,
and when the dishes were all put away
we played that old game of Telephone,
where you whisper a few words
in your neighbor’s ear
and they pass along to theirs
what they believed they heard.
Blackbird, I said,
All I have to lend is meager light.
He landed weightless on the stone,
repeating: Dark or day we rise in eager flight.
The stone, stone-deaf, in a low voice
to the tree: Snow numbs, but see,
on the hillside how it glistens!
And the pine, a metaphysical sort,
passed along: Wind hums, sit with me
and feel her kisses.
The message came to Emily
who turned and touched my face:
But when it comes, she said
the landscape listens.
Too bleak and beautiful 