Poem by the Danish writer Pia Tafdrup

   
Lesson behind the leaf-curtain

Closed now the school, where each day nightingales

rehearse songs of which only an awakening love

will later teach them mastery.

The birds are trapped behind a slanting needle grating,

their wings folded against the rain.

The drops glisten, hit the foliage and earth in icy stabs

or trickle down the window, hour by hour.

The drops strike the roof-top, colouring the notes

that sing within, behind the temples -

the hours all wound; the last is deadly.