After Giorgio Caproni


        I remember an ancient church
in a village in the Apennine,
the sun, its radiance turning to rust,
the sky was below

                                us not above,
and the birds were myriad.
I was a child then and tired.
We sat on one of the stone steps,

        nodding, my mother and I, as if
we had no place to sleep.
It was late when we roused
ourselves, astonished to see

the light in each bird
                                snuffed out by the stars.