Magpiety

The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests

Amazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne,

Has in no way diminished my amazement.

A magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety?

What is magpiety? I shall never achieve

A magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight

That always renews just when coming down,

And so I shall never comprehend magpiety.

If however magpiety does not exist

My nature does not exist either.

Who would have guessed that, centuries later,

I would invent the question of universals?