The branches granted him the pride of fulfillment—
their height, the freshness of their green,
and the dewiness of their renown.
So he imagined himself capable
of engineering straw.
He began weaving his gathered harvest
through the dryness of the branches,
fastening his home to some branch,
filling its corners with the warmth of an illusion,
hoping to dwell in his solitude
with an everlasting tenderness.
The bullet never saw him
as it scattered all that plumage,
nor did the eye of the skilled marksman
who brought him down.
Nor did his heart,
fluttering as it slipped away
from its own veins.
Nor did we—
as we lingered deep
into a night of pain.
Only the tree bore the burden of mourning:
escorting the straw to its burial,
covering the blood of the sanctuary,
lamenting as it listened, night after night,
to a hidden song—
wandering through an empty nest,
devoid of the tenderness
of a bird
who had chosen some solitude.