Clasping Branches
By
Radiance Angelina Petro

This third-floor apartment, surrounded by trees, is lonely and quiet. An occasional car passes down on the road, leading itself with its own light. The laughter of the couple below travels faintly through the right angles of the vents into my kitchen. Moonlight slants across the bromeliad in the living room. My guitar is shut in its duct-taped case. The Tibetan bowls wait to ring—patient as caves awaiting something to echo. There must be so many birds sleeping in the branches of the dark trees, blending so well with the night so as to become invisible. Do they dream? Dream of sky? Dream of filling empty bellies? They clasp the branches so tightly their tendons lock, preventing them from falling. Every morning they sing themselves into existence. They create the day with song. I wonder if they amaze themselves with what bursts forth from their bodies. What would it be like to sing oneself awake from darkness?