The day her wings unfolded in my bough I understood the rhymes and songs of all the poets in the all the world, and Love was born unto me. So I presented it to her in silk and verse, beseeching her lips and hands and said: “this is me. Though the sun is harsh and my canopy arid, wherever my shadows cast I am your land of milk and honey.” But she shuffled her tender grip and flied west-ward, and harkened not my rasped calls. Through wind and storm, I followed. When they cut my arms and stripped me to the bones, I cried not, for Love was bright in me. When they pierced me and bound me with a thousand shards of cold steel, I cried not. For Love was alive in me. When they drowned me in pungent poisons and measured my will against the teeth of the sea, I cried not, for Love was aloft in me. Then upon the shore, amidst the hard sands, I saw her wings fold beneath Palm-shaded dunes and proclaimed again and again and again my gnashed sea-wrung Love. And was unheeded. They took me apart and cast my carcass to the hearth and my Love died and turned to rot.
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