Birds of a feather-
do they truly flock together?
Do they obey the wind, or each other?
They never hesitate to peck and rip;
their nature is not so lovely without order.
Innocence is only pretty when expensively trapped.
Why do you sing, little bird?
Is it from longing for a summer now gone,
or does mourning time itself pry open your beak?
I’d rather think you’re like me,
tilt my head to the damp, soggy glare
of a morning that has shown itself too late.
We sing. Don’t we sing for the hope of spring,
even through these dark, unforgiving days?
It’s spring again.
Where are you now,
Little bird?
Blessed with wings is to be drawn
eternally toward deceit.
To know the map of wind, but never escape it.
To build a nest from stolen twigs and call it a home.
Pitifully fleeting-
droplets that pelt from an ever-changing sky.
Discarded for their weight,
shaken from the branches,
a descent into the waiting earth.
That sound on the leaves-is it anger?
I wonder.
Are you vengeful for your dismissal from the heavens,
or merely helpless?
And in the rain, a bird flies head-down,
beak a feathered dagger.
Is it falling or flying?
The sky forgets the difference.
In the downpour, water falls upward from its wings,
the moment is nothing but
a single,
desperate,
reversible descent.
Writer – Sophia Kong
Editor – Robbie Ge
Artist – Cindy Zhang
–August 2025–
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