Two unchanging notes; to us, words—always those high
elongated notes. Red-eyed koels with feathered ear-muffs,downward ending notes that pour through a falling of night
coming over the distances, words that don’t change.The two notes remain, a split phrase, two words
meaning, not exactly a self—not quite, the first day of spring.The moment of utterance, candor becomes
the piercing, whistled syllables. Penetrating the dark greenof twilight, the storm birds call, two notes, two words,
and cackle in the broken egged dawn, in the echoing light.
Return to Three Poems and Webb Lecture by the Inaugural CAL Chair of Poetry
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