The High Note

A single tree
draws its body upward
toward the sky.
It is not a tree that grew straight.
It is a tree that endured the wind for a long time,
bent, and bent again.
From the end of that bent body,
two birds rise into the air.
So as not to sink into the field,
so as not to be buried by the wind,
they cry in the highest pitch.
I am alive, I am here,
so that the sound
may reach the end of the sky.
A high note
is a sound that pushes its own being upward
so that, in the end,
it will not disappear.
Though the body is fixed in the earth,
remaining in the place of exile,
the sound can leave the body
and rise
to the far end of the empty sky.
That beating of wings
is not separate from the tree.
It is the one note
the bent body has held all its life,
at last gaining wings.