A Sicilian Song

In Cefalù

the birds have lost their knack for song, chatter instead, rehearse

the morning’s gossip, knock about the dawn,

talk about the laundry on the lines.

It’s all up in the air, this small talk and banter

picked up from rooftops, the go-between of alleyways,

last night’s call to supper.

In Cefalù

those birds not fit for village life are made to leave and go to sea,

circle the coast like a fest of kites, string the air

in flocks and populate the outer fringes of the sky.

They may lean towards the line at the horizon but never get too far

or lose the beach that brought them here

in the first place.

In Cefalù

there’s a fisherman I met who says that he’s no gardener,

knows nothing of the trees in bloom, the names of birds

that hang their nets in branches.

Yet he takes to the sea with a spade and a stick all the same—

the birds, a circle behind him,

the fish, deep in the waves beneath him.