I've freed birds caught in traps small hearts all a rumble. "All cry," the crows say, black and blue and bitten— their confessions come now to tribunal. I've carried lilacs through rain broken their branches and hoped they would not wither. And now I watch starlings on the wire one by one drop into unknown shelter. As clouds darken down another notch, the smell of ferns seeps into me. A day to stroll into, to measure shadows, to measure light, and it's only after night falls that I understand. The fern uncurls, the rain still on its leaves, as if wanting to throw itself away in summer.