Magpies

One for sorrow
two for joy.

They dance together
on a busy roadside
two pied beauties
dazzling and dazzled
each transfixed by each
but never touching their tiny beaks.

Resisting connection
as though magnetism
or God
or the wind
or simply fear
lay somewhere inside
that unbridgeable divide.

Adam reaches up to Heaven
and God reaches down
and, feeling lonely,
I start to wonder
if I am seeing joy at all
or merely witnessing
two deepening sorrows.

Perhaps I just need faith?