Epithalamium: Fifth Hour

The birds that lose their winged self in song
Build their nest from a phoenix melody.
In God’s blue beard, they tangle up their song
With psalms that pinion clay’s theogony
And let earth rise to survey time’s estate:
Aurora married late
Or Tithonus too early, but the birds
Prefer perforce to kindle their own light.
The poets are clever to feather words
(Hardy darkened his century with a thrush
And Shelly sought to rush
His lark through gravity’s legislation),
But these are solitary fictions of
Lost hearts. Today, we look for David’s dove,
Like Keats’ midnight minstrel, lost in translation,
But raised to salvation
By eagle’s wings and robin’s throat for this –
That nature sings up morning in the key of grace.