The Seasons, With Sparrows Poem by Martin A. Ramos

I know the sparrow in the marrow
of your bones.
And in the spring, closely within
your pirouettes I follow
like the hollow echo of sea,
crazy as foam.

I know the bird I heard
while drifting on the sand.
Was it in summer, when seagulls hover
and the ocean summons the shore,
the heart hungers for more,
and love is mute as a hand?

I know the bird I heard
as I stumbled in a wood.
Was it in autumn, as leaves fall to the bottom,
your wings raised to the summit my soul
and, from a golden bowl,
offered the beat of their blood?

I know the song, a gilded gong,
the sounds of Byzantium.
Come winter, when snow is kinder
than frost—the words unveiled:
warm, veritable, frail—
two birds will soar as one.