Utnapishtim Sent Three Birds

“When the seventh day arrived,

 I sent forth and set free a dove.

The dove went forth, but came back;

There was no resting-place for it and she turned round.

Then I sent forth and set free a swallow.

The swallow went forth, but came back,

There was no resting-place for it and she turned round.

Then I sent forth and set free a raven.

The raven went forth and, seeing that the waters had diminished,

He eats, circles, caws, and turns not round.”

 – Gilgamesh, Tablet xi, John Gardner and John Meier trans.

Utnapishtim Sent Three Birds 

Over water & water the dove flies,
her beak empty her mind 
awash from days without a place to stand;


for whom would you send in search of land
when all the world has been
taken from you – not the forked swallow


circling the debris field’s oil slick rainbow
shimmering water
it cannot calm.  Its swift return with empty


claws yields but the cenotaph’s pity,
less even than
the feeble comfort of an inhabited grave.


Then seek not with wings of beauty,
grant no evidence grace.
The raven seizes his own authority


in his coat, his voice, without admirers, he tears
apart – don’t ask what –
full in the taste of his own desires.


When all is lost to love then you must love.
Extend your arm
as though there were still another; as the wave


crests over you regard & revel
in its particulars: seaweed
overcurving the green reach of oyster shell;


for your arms alone may stop the flood, 
your plunging body fill
the hollow: it is nothing, let it be enough.