Like a bird flying clear across the air

I feel your thinking coming toward me

and here in my heart it’s building its nest.

My soul flowers open; the stems tremble

like the fresh lips of a youth’s first embrace

of a beauty, the leaves stab like a knife

as jealously bitter as the servants

of a lady of the wealthy classes

while busy preparing her marriage bed.

My heart is large and it belongs to you

All of sadness can fit inside my soul

as long as the world cries, suffers, and dies!

With the dry leaves, dust, and fallen branches

I clean and carefully brush each leaf’s brush;

I take the eaten petals from the worms

I trim the lawn and look what I have found

See how your bird is now shrinking my heart!