The Hierophant

"An ear of grain in silence reaped." Hippolytus, A Refutation of all Heresies. 
 

This blackbird sings Spring

to death, throat rippling

notes of rites, 

of all the dark flights

he has carried

to the boundaries of dawns,

at the edge of evenings.

A blackbird worships the sun,

is worshipped by the worm

and ant; what he knows

is given to the air

as much as the stag senses

the land, how a trout

is at home in water, and so

he conforms to his own nature.

We are subject to change -

it is our essence, but then

every moment holds 

a capacity for conversion,

to reform from blood guilt.

Still, this blackbird's 

greater mysteries are kept,

of sow and watch and reap;

the wordless crop of first maize -

such secrets, yet in my garden,

one morning, I swear

he read the earth 

and named me.
 

Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blackbird_Grönvold.jpg

Also on Twitter: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bembo-Visconti-tarot-arcanum-05-hierophant.jpg