Making Birds Fall

Tears do not cry themselves —
They have masters
That pierce their silvery backs
With pain lashed strands
Redden-roughed cords
As laboring, as if a falling death is not enough.

Flames do not die of tears
For them it is much more, and heavier.
It is cover of a cold solitary night
Of heavy tracked snow that stings even before the touch.

And it is not shocking,
Birds that once ranged and circled high
Do not fall of acute snow or biting winter
But by pains sharper than sky-lining stones.