The Bird and the Hour: After Billy Collins “Litany”

We are the bird and the hour, the session

and the fee. We know we are the commute

and the dream, but we are also the trees in Central Park

and the eyes of the feral girl.

We are even the boiled-wool blanket

covering her shoulders. We are the bird

in flight, the bird on its perch; we might even be the hummingbird

tuning its magic stillness, treading air, but let's be clear:

we are not the birds in formation flying south or north.

We have never been a chapter in a textbook