Cheer

Like the waxwings in the juniper, a dozen at a time, divided, paired, passing the berries back and forth, and by nightfall, wobbling, piping, wounded with joy. Or a party of redwings grazing what falls—blossom and seed, nutmeat and fruit— made light in the head and cut by the light, swept from the ground, carried downwind, taken.... It's called wing-rowing, the wing-burdened arms unbending, yielding, striking a balance, walking the white invisible line drawn just ahead in the air, first sign the slur, the liquid notes too liquid, the heart in the mouth melodious, too close, which starts the chanting, the crooning, the long lyric silences, the song of our undoing. It's called side-step, head-forward, raised-crown, flap- and-glide-flight aggression, though courtship is the object, affection the compulsion, love the overspill—the body nodding, still standing, ready to fly straight out of itself—or its bill-tilt, wing-flash, topple- over; wing-droop, bowing, tail-flick and drift; back-ruffle, wingspread, quiver and soar. Someone is troubled, someone is trying, in earnest, to explain; to speak without swallowing the tongue; to find the perfect word among so few or the too many— to sing like the thrush from the deepest part of the understory, territorial, carnal, thorn-at-the-throat, or flutelike in order to make one sobering sound. Sound of the breath blown over the bottle, sound of the reveler home at dawn, light of the sun a warbler yellow, the sun in song-flight, lopsided-pose. Be of good-cheer, my father says, lifting his glass to greet a morning in which he's awake to be with the birds: or up all night in the sleep of the world, alive again, singing.