I Gently Took The Strawberry Heart
I gently took the strawberry heart
of the bird with the broken neck
and buried it in a shrine of leaves and grass.
And in a low voice, whispered a blessing.
Under the window of an illusion
like a song you can only hear once
and it's good for a lifetime of listening,
I buried you with your wings together in prayer.
And I prayed to know what to pray for.
I prayed to know what to ask that could ease
the burden of the earth on a nightbird's journey
flying solo deeper into the dark
than even the stars or these eyeless words can go.
And I know death returns even the worst of us
to our innocence again, though our bones
come crashing down like childhood kites around us.
And the flight feathers of the aerial acrobatics
of our love lyrics run out of ink
when there's no one in the dark
to sing for anymore, no stars
to chart where you've gone,
no sign from the heavens you're not alone,
no ghost of smoke from a distant fire
I can summon to a seance of lingering desire
that would console you in the flesh again
like a candle in your solitude reaching out
to the pain of a stranger in the shadows
to make your wound cry out in bliss
as you once did from a greener bough
than this dead branch I sing from now
when we thought blossoms were the answer
to everything we didn't understand at the time
that could befall us like fledglings in the spring
who didn't know what autumn would bring
like an ice-storm in its wake
to things that break against the sky
like the cold-hearted lie of a window
that wasn't open and didn't go on forever.
And though I ask the weather for news of you,
if the wind might have heard
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poem by Patrick White
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