Unknown Bird by W. S. Merwin
Out of the dry days through the dusty leaves far across the valley those few notes never heard here before
one fluted phrase floating over its wandering secret all at once wells up somewhere else
and is gone before it goes on fallen into its own echo leaving a hollow through the air that is dry as before
where is it from hardly anyone seems to have noticed it so far but who now would have been listening
it is not native here that may be the one thing we are sure of it came from somewhere else perhaps alone
so keeps on calling for no one who is here hoping to be heard by another of its own unlikely origin
trying once more the same few notes that began the song of an oriole last heard years ago in another existence there
it goes again tell no one it is here foreign as we are who are filling the days with a sound of our own
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