Statue and Birds

Here, in the withered arbor, like the arrested wind,   
Straight sides, carven knees,
Stands the statue, with hands flung out in alarm   
Or remonstrances.

Over the lintel sway the woven bracts of the vine   
In a pattern of angles.
The quill of the fountain falters, woods rake on the sky   
Their brusque tangles.

The birds walk by slowly, circling the marble girl,   
The golden quails,
The pheasants, closed up in their arrowy wings,   
Dragging their sharp tails.

The inquietudes of the sap and of the blood are spent.   
What is forsaken will rest.
But her heel is lifted,—she would flee,—the whistle of the birds   
Fails on her breast.

Copyright Credit: Louise Bogan, “Statue and Birds” from The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968. Copyright © 1968 by Louise Bogan. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved.
Source: The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1968)