A Middling Nowhere

Where are the magpies? Where the ruined cathedrals where are the birds that once made their homes in the hollow heads of saints? Here all dwell in the new or the old the days between are bulldozed, the waste rubble resold. Crowds seek out boarded-up exits other crowds construct entrances for new homes that when assembled resemble all other's. I need a hill to howl upon. The land is flat, even the water is flat. Mountains are small or not at all. Yet there are midnight Magpies, there are crows cawing in woodland churches. Mythical back-eyed catbirds roam from home to home. Many places are not condemned to the newfangled and yet still unoriginal. Some magpie nests and appear almost near, just under the eaves of a middling nowhere.