The bird-woman
A woman with a bird’s mouth
becomes visible
she smiles like nightjars commonly do.
And those who are afraid
of life
go on fearing
and those who play go on playing.
And those who hush
and always look away
go on doing so.
But
the bird-woman herself steps aside
and says
with this inimitable smile of hers
completely devoid of sympathy
like the consolation of forest and water:
You
perhaps believe that I am death
which of course I am not
and I am not life either.
I
am a hybrid creature
my claws I latch onto the dead
my beak is turned toward the living
in the forest I fly off
to those unborn.
Like you
and the others I drink water
and exist on berries and creatures smaller than myself.
In that
which is underground I seek sleep
but sleep is not given me.
My mouth
that smiles – that is how I was created.
And just as little as I know
what life or death carry in their folds
when they like owls
see me through the darkness
do I know what my smile means.
(The nocturnal nightjar is a wide-mouthed, insect-eating summer visitor to moors and forests.)
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