Watching the Birdwatcher

She peers through a pair of binoculars

into a treetop lit with day’s last blaze,

where some bird alights unseen by me.

Her gaze poised so tremulous and light,

as if resting upon a twig—looking, looking

at the bird that we don’t see. The bird in the tree,

and the seer of the bird sharing for the stainless present

the same slender branch. She stands stock-still.

Expecting nothing. Neither bird, nor bird watcher, nor air

are moving. Nor I, as I watch her, as she watches the bird—

all hung weightless and timeless and spaceless. Perched

upon this dimensionless brink. The twig could not bear

any more load than this bare awareness. If, therefore,

you would not spook the bird, nor snap the twig,

nor shatter this spun glass globe of air, then alight upon

the world like air, like breath. And do not linger any longer

than this bird watcher who now strolls off, the bird still hidden,

still lost in shadow. Forgetting the bird, forgetting herself.

Dissolving like an apparition into twilight’s final bay.

Only this poem still holding on. Foolish poem

grasping at the ungraspable world.