Even In Hell There Are Songbirds Poem by Diane Seuss

Not just cawing but full trills, music rising like swells
on a windy ocean, each bird a chip off of some
brilliantly-colored abstraction, beaks gold as trumpets
reflecting yellow blossoms, in hell birds are free
but they are not symbolic of freedom, there are no
symbols in hell, the moonflowers open
and close their mouths but have nothing
to say, the bees sting the poppy's heart and carry away
its black pollen, and we in our uniforms sit
in our lawn chairs and watch, we take it all in,
we let it pound us like breakers into the side of a tethered
wooden boat, we receive beauty as a nail receives
the hammer blow, and we remember our losses,
and the gains we thought were gains but were really losses,
but we cannot rub even two words together, not enough
to let loose a spark, not enough to light a fire in a thimble,
and this is the hell of it.