Requiem for a Blue Jay

David Rock

. . . c’est la mort
a heady brilliance
the ultimate gloire . . .
(John Berryman)

Arrogant flower on the retina of despair,
conceived immaculate when no one
was watching: blue jay in the awful angle
between flash and loam—

here’s a little something to show the children:
the distillation of thrust between crest and bone.

Shaft of passion, elegant sacrifice, angel
divested of the sky where God washes
his hands in the rain,
        lying intact
under a hedge
for weeks, resplendent in contrast
(so be it), or reconciliation—
See: he is brazen in his claim

of incorruptibility, terse in the dispersal
of his flame, and in the meantime
requiescat until spring

when the sordid curfew of black and blue
unfolds and he rises, rises
in a translucent flurry
of wings.