The waiting song, the crow song

this is the waiting song
the crow song in the branches
the dog song clicking nails on asphalt
it is the high heel song
the duck song and the game song
the car song at the traffic lights
the spring sun song
          unzipping my coat
          on a warm park bench

the path's a hard black ribbon
blown in from somewhere else
hardly a barrier between us
          a dead seagull and me

behind him is the pond
          the wind scatters handfuls of diamonds
          on its murky thrift shop mirror skin
and then poplars
and the new brick church
a road I think and football fields
etcetera etcetera and all around
          the city

the city that lies face down
in the salty clay
whose fingers still stroke rivers
that it drank six hundred years ago
breathing fear and money (as cities do)
pumping a thousand million whispers
along thread thin arteries
back and forth into the world

but you all still die though?
the seagull asks

and it rises from the deep roots
from the sand grains and
the diatoms
          the waiting song
          the breath of birth

          of springtime

who am I to defend all that?
who am I to answer?