I heard them only once. Climbing in the mountains,
I stopped to rest a moment on a ledge
and listen to the river distantly below-
when suddenly they began to call each other
back and forth from trees across the valley,
invisible in pinetops but bright and clear
like the ring of crystal against crystal.
I didn’t move but lay there wondering
what they were like, amazed that folklore
had made their cry the omen of betrayal.
So now, reading how the Chinese took their call
to mean Pu ju kuei, pu ju kuei-
Come home again, you must come home again-
I understand at last what they were telling me
not then, back in that high, green valley,
but here this evening in the memory of it
returned by these birds that I have never seen.
Leave a Reply