Blackbirds piled on the ground

Another poem I started in January 2011 at the Vermont Studio Center that is now getting the light of day is "Painting," which is perversely (I think) being shared via the VSC Holiday card to all our friends, donors, alumni, etc. Nothing says Happy Holidays like a storm of dead blackbirds falling from the sky! Oh well...

Painting

I paint a field of snow

and a man standing in it.

That’s my picture of solitude.

I paint a red bird in flight above the man.

His head is raised. I call that song.

If I paint the bird black and then another

and another until there are 5,000 blackbirds

piled on the ground, it is the sinks.

Perhaps snow covers all the blackbirds but two.

The man is drifted over by white and blue.

Two birds remain to share a black seed (once was bird)

in the snow crust. What would you call that?