"Praise Them," Li-Young Lee

The birds don't alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying. They leave
nothing to trace. It is our own
astonished collects
in chill air. Be glad.
They equal their due
moment never begging,
and enter our
wihtout parting day. See
how three birds in a winter tree
make the tree barer.
Two fly away, and new rooms
open in December.
Give up what you guessed
about a whirring heart, the little
beaks and claws, their constant hunger.
We're the nervous ones.
If even one of our violent number
could be gentle
long enough that one of them
found it safe inside
our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze,
who wouldn't hear
what singing completes us?

From Birds in the Hand: Fiction and Poetry About Birds, an anthology edited by birders and fiction writers Dylan and Kent Nelson. Here's more of Lee's poetry.