Feathers of the First Kind

Some things are better hummed not said,
among them,
the birds, who do not know better.
How could they, beak-filled and feather proud?
Which was not all they could be.

They could be, it was thought,
dreamier, filled with silver water,
all ready to pour
and cooling down from the red hot river,
or they might be, it was denied,
a midsummer's forgetfulness.

How it was whispered through the forest
was not known.
But things rise at dawn
and are not seen again,
only their tufts falling down,
and falling to falling
and falling again.

And in their falling
they were all facelessness,
and not-ness and thing-ness
of the earth.
They were slivers that scented rocks,
which drooled into the streams,
until the roar commanded all who were nearby.

Gone and back;
gone and back;
All who were forgotten
are now thought.
All were unlost
Are now unfound.
Semiridae. Semiradea.
We will not forget.