Tuesday Poem

Architecture

I peer into Japanese characters
as into faraway buildings
cut from the mind’s trees.

In the late afternoon a small bird
shakes a branch, lets drop a white splash.

In the wind, in the rain,
the delicate wire cage glistens,
empty of suet.

Poetry’s not window-cleaning.
It breaks the glass.
.

by Chase Twichell
from The Snow Watcher

Copper Canyon Press, 1998