Holly Day
They send to the boy to the top of the mountain to think about what he has done.
It’s just something that we do, this is what you do
when something needs to be fixed. There are boxes of birds
with their wings broken, eyes sunk into skulls
still covered with bright blue feathers
harbingers of spring, silenced. This silence is something to think about.
The boy sits on the mountaintop, hands figuratively bound,
thoughts metaphorically bound.
There are birds and flowers everywhere here, but they are not his to touch.
He can smell the flowers on the wind
the smell of wheatgrass baking in the sun, the
birds flopping in the undergrowth. They are not his to touch,
he’s been told that they never were.
The world is full of souvenirs of conquest
but you can’t get caught collecting them.