write a poem that begins in another language and slowly finds its way to your own. what shape will the words take, and who will they greet along the way? if there are villages, are they celebrating something, feastday or public hanging, the flushing of the viaduct? do the words travel through the bordering forest, and if so are they changed by it, emerging as supplicants without rind or cover, burning their clothes in the pits arranged solely for that purpose? what do they hang from the branches as they leave, and what do they carry out with them: a yellow thrush, broken wing and broken song, a bit of moss to bind a wound, or simply the sight of a dark shape upon a darker shape, and the mysterious movement of a plaintive wind? make your words a hot drink, but do not press them too closely— something strange lurks in the corners of their mouths, and in the shadows of their midnight hair.