January Song

In the wind the world breaks as songs
When a thrush comes to a gap
Where there are no leaves.
His harpist throat warbles
With nothing in common between him
And the soil below;
He lifts his beak as a clear
Melodic conquest,
And there is nothing around him
Of spring’s freshness and greenness
So the miracle is untainted
By contact with the world,
A shock in history surer than lightning,
More quavering than a baby’s babble.
He orates in the gap and drowns the thick black stillness,
The long isolation, the final unfeeling coldness
That fords the brook of notes. Bravely he stands guard
As if sound’s entire creation depended
On spinning diamonds and jewels from his youthful lungs.
A little hero, he hurls the small stones
At the dark, at the dark, at the dark.
Although neither feather nor head was seen
At home tonight, all who have heard him
Will imitate the flash, multiply the crisis.

Bobi Jones