Classic Poem

A song that's a machine of sorts. A dream
I had of Us and Them, of ways in which
we need to shut Them down. All of that beach
seemed poison too until one ibis came

to me, perfecting those crude dunes like the christ
of dunes: ivory plumage blooming in all
the ways we said it would, its rusty wail
slammed into place. It gets the last

word in, amen, but why does that word lead
above all others to this, the source,
the nest from which it never rose

up once at war within itself? Nor chose,
of course, to be like us, and stay like us
To die quietly in bed.