When in the fourteenth century
the priest said hoc est corpus meum,
this is my body,
what the people heard was hocus pocus—
they didn’t understand
the language—and I’m not sure
that’s such a bad thing.
I could tell you the names of all the birds
in the forest, just on the basis
of how they sing,
but it’s spring now, and today I walked
among the burgeoning trees,
and wherever I looked
there was nothing
but green.