COGNITIO EXPERIMENTALIS
(Kinglet Song)


The Wren winces before the rift
Whistles at the rupture, whispers
Through a whistling rent in the veil
Stitched o'er a hole in the fullness

The Eagle's wings are patched sails that
Harness gales—star navigation
By the scruff of a horse's mane—
Andromeda eclipsed

Andromeda smothered
in a wingspan
backlit by it

Eagle, wind-hare, grows teary-eyed
As his great height tells more than asked
Of his pact with earth—paving stones
Choke the brown promenades below

Open-air claustrophobia
In the crusade against lightness—
The threadbare veil tears, the sun dims
Eagle's small stowaway

embraces the lightness
the Eagle flees
as he rises

Wren, rightful heir of weight, rather
Scrambles contra—the hitchhiker
Bounds songs note by note, amassing
Fractions soon to fill the fullness

Wing'd tortoise, songbird of the veil
Sees Cassiopeia lying
As Corona Borealis
Hangs from a sagging bough

above the weighted strain
lightly ascends
he who will reign


James Bradley