Birds Within

And I said: this is the end.

Pieces of me have been undone,

shard by shard.

Pain has nested itself

in every cell of my body.

They fall in love. They lay eggs.

The eggs become fledglings,

and the fledglings fall in love—

nesting, nesting,

breeding, dying.

Yet they never left my eternity.

They endured.

They lived on—enduring.

The doves of grief chose their home.

My breath is their breath;

my sorrow is their food,

and my joy—their death.

With their beaks

they struck my heart again and again

until at last it broke—

and they carried it off,

plundered it,

left it ransacked.

And I said: this is only the beginning of the end—

a beginning for an ending,

an ending for a beginning.