No one comes to the land of time
Without wandering the fields
Of the hours,
Plucking the minutes that grow
Side by side,
And climbing the trees of the months
Very high.

Lydia got no further. Ma-ah ran forward. She recited the following so quickly that the words all ran together:

De li a ne bo,
Fra se igna mambra.
Sor ju anda
See far barde nee um
Lar breatum tes mu
Ze to.

“Not yet. Don’t say it yet,” Sumpter said, urgently.

Seven just stood there, feeling freer and freer, beginning to understand the events that would unfold.

“I don’t understand,” Lydia said, appealingly, to Ma-ah.

“Do you write poetry for adults?” Sumpter asked.

“Why, yes, but I don’t think I can remember any of them all the way through, and I don’t seem to have that book.”

“You can remember, Lydia,” Seven said, gently. She gasped again; his eyes seemed to unravel her memory.

“How odd. Yes, I do remember. Yes.” And she recited:

THOUGHT-BIRD SONG

The birds outside my window
Are your thoughts sent to me.
From the nest of your brain
They come flying; fledglings.
I feed them bread crumbs
So they do not go hungry.
Then they perch on the tree branch
With beaks open, singing:

“We have come from the nest
Of yesterday and tomorrow.
God bless our journey.
We have flown from the inside
To the outside world of your knowledge.
The cage door is wide open.
We burst out, singing.
We fill all the treetops.

“Splendid and glowing,
Tiny as tree bells,
We dance on the branches
Of night and day always.
Listen to us. Feed us.
We are your thoughts winging
Out of the nest
Of the birth cage
Into summer and winter.

“Our song is your heartbeat.
We move with your pulses.
You send us out
Perfect and shining,
Each living and different
To populate your kingdom.
We sing outside your window
And line up on the rooftops.”

As Lydia finished, all the Speakers arose. They began talking excitedly together. Many rushed up to Sumpter. He raised his arms for silence and everyone quieted as he began to speak.

“Lydia’s poems, as you now know, are translations, somewhat distorted, of the Sumari verses we teach our own children, in which truths as we understand them are passed on through the generations. Ma-ah has been learning these precise verses as a part of her training.” Sumpter paused, then continued. “I assume that our telepathic translation of the poems was correct, but I was astonished that Ma-ah understood at first. Then I remembered the connection between Lydia and Ma-ah that was apparent when they met—”

“But what is the connection?” Ma-ah asked. “And what was the last, longer poem? I didn’t understand that one—”