Bird at the Window Poem by Sophie Cabot Black

Beyond is a brightness
I am not equal to

Yet what I see
Turns into what I want,

And to bring nothing but this body
To pass through

The one thing between
Myself and what I crave,

Almost done, the world a ruin
Of leaves, winter at the throat,

My song over and over until
So familiar I can do

What I am about to do
While you who rise from the table

And walk from room to room
Will remember only the sound

Of what cast herself through
All that glass, instead of the song

That was sung until finally
You would ask to know more.