Roadside Reminiscence
The sun was shinning and no cloud cover
Was in view. Few cars this early traversed
The road making my ride decidedly
Safer and serene. I couldn’t contrive
In my mind a more beautiful Sunday.
I was consciously consumed; contented
When suddenly I spotted something steel-
Gray not far ahead of me. At first I
Thought that it was the usual soft-shoulder
Debris. The closer I came it became
Clear to me what it was, a dead gray bird.
I stopped my bike, dismounted and approached
It. I stooped and lifted the lifeless thing.
Still warm to the touch, that it could have died
A moment ago. Suddenly saddened
By this find a feeling of guilt arose
Within me. Not knowing the nuances,
With bird in hand I began to bemoan
A rush of muted memories flooding
My senses. I stood there alone; alive
Knowing somewhere, someone or some thing soon
Would suffer the same funereal fate.
Guilty because I live to love this day
Sans mother, father, brother and sister.
A cumulus cloud snuck across the sun
Further darkening my melancholy.
I grudgingly gazed down at my fleshy
Bier, still cradling the feathery corpse.
The cloud continued its eternal course
Across the sunlit sky showering me
With prodigious, radiant rays once more.
I knelt and scooped a shallow roadside grave
And placed the little lifeless bird inside
While elegiac verses passed my lips.
As the last of the moistened earth covered
The unmarked grave I gave thanks to my God
For this solemn Sunday reminiscence.
poem by Albert Ahearn
Added by Poetry Lover
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