Ignorance

I was woken up in the early morning, after my flight

By a sound I could not grasp, I did not recognize

Running like water, two toned, and tangled

Like a brier holding many sounds all at once

It was a magpie, you told me as you handed me a coffee

The black and white bird you see in city parks

And you pointed out the window, looking straight in at me

A black and white bird sitting on the fence

I thought about the man who called it a magpie

Confronted by the great expanse of his ignorance

He wanted to name it, to detain it forever in that small phrase

It seemed likе a shame to give it a name

But thеn again, I don't understand anything the way I'm supposed to

I drag every river for meaning, scrape my hand on every ceiling

I never know what to say or not say

What to honour or betray in any given day

But I never got used to the sound of the magpie

It set my skin on edge, it called like a child

Like a dog, like the wind caught in a fence

When we talked, it interrupted

And I would never know what it meant