Wooden Bird

^{translated from the Polish by Czesław Miłosz and Peter Dale Scott}

In the warm hands
of children
a wooden bird
began to live

under enamel feathers
a tiny heart gave itself

a glass eye
caught fire with sight

a painted wing
stirred

a dry body
felt craving for the forest

it marched 
like a soldier in a ballad
with its sticks of legs it drummed
the right leg drummed—forest
the left leg drummed—forest
it dreamed
green light
closed eyes of nests
at the bottom

at the forest’s edge
woodpeckers picked out its eyes
its tiny heart blackened 
from the torture of common beaks
yet it marched on 
shoved about by venomous mushrooms
jeered at by orioles
at the bottom of dead leaves
it sought a nest

it lives now 
on the impossible border
between matter animate
and invented
between a fern from the forest
and a fern from Larousse
on a dry stalk
on one leg
on a hair of wind
on what tears itself away from reality
but hasn’t enough heart
enough strength
does not transform itself
into an image