Aspen Vista high trail winter

The birds’ favorite songs

You do not hear,

 

For their most flamboyant music takes place

when their wings are stretched above the trees

 

And they are smoking the opium

of pure freedom.

 

It is healthy for the prisoner

to have faith

 

That one day he will again move about

wherever he wants,

feel the wondrous grit of life—

less structured,

 

Find all wounds, debts stamped canceled,

paid.

 

I once asked a bird,

“How is it that you fly in this gravity

of darkness?”

 

She responded,

 

“Love lifts

Me.”

 

—Hafiz, from The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

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