How Birds Began To Sing

In the beginning birds flew letters against the clouds 
and punctuated branches at night.  
But they would not sing.  

 Every morning, an anxious god 
whistled beneath the trees, to no avail.
The sound of wind under wings was their only sound.  

One day a bird the god had never seen before
settled atop a mountain.  
At night it sang like the moon on a pond, 
at dawn like the sunrise across the horizon,
  and though it lived a thousand years,  
a morning came when the anxious god found it 
shrouded by its own wings.  

After I am dead,  said the bird,
take out my breast bone and carve a flute from it.  
When you play it, the others will sing.

But the god would not wait. 
She tore open its breast and sucked the marrow from its
 bone,   
made holes along the edges and,
 raising it to her lips, 
blew the silence after rain.  
That morning the birds began to sing.

And that is why there is an ache in one's heart when a bird
 sings and when it doesn't.

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