Speaking with Magpies

"Male magpies build nests as a courtship ritual," James McGrath says. "They risk the future, like poets who risk breathing light and darkness, hoping someone will hear them, yet knowing it does not matter. It is the pilgrimage, the chattering, the nesting of words that say, I am here, that really matter. It is not the verbosity of magpies I understand. It is the opening of mock orange, the white line around a black stone, feathers found on mountain trails, shape-shifting clouds, voices in the blood. It is the unfathomable enchantment of inhaling and exhaling the world while I expect a poem."