White Birds

today the trees are filled with white birds

snowy egrets, great egrets — they’re all

great — two directly across the lake

though it might be they’re magnolia

another tree holds six or eight

wait, I’ll get the glasses — these two

are magnolia, & one’s a gap giving sky

two are silver fixtures on poles — east

though, in the wide branching yellow-green

pine the birds stand, not egrets —

prehistoric — one head down preening

two hunched backs, two dreaming

today’s birds are five wood storks

The Rooster’s Song

by Eugenio Montejo

                               to Adriano Gonzalez Leon

The song is outside the rooster:

it’s falling drop by drop into his body

now where he sleeps in the tree.

At night it falls, doesn’t stop falling

from the dark between his veins and wings.

Uncontainable, the song fills the rooster

as if he were a deep pitcher:

fills his feathers, his crest, his spurs

until its enormous cry overflows and rings out,

spills without pause across the world.

After the fanfare fades

silence encloses.

Once again the song is outside

scattered to the dark wind.

Inside the rooster are only entrails and sleep

and a small drop that falls to deep night

silently, to the tic-tac of stars.

— translated by Peter Boyle & Carol Peters