i might've been a songbird
cupped in morning's first light
the poetry of a chickadee
the elegance of a catbird
or maybe the joyful wren
from field to pasture
flocks of friendly sparrow
might have followed me
geese may have known rest
in my quiet pond, and the eagle
may have shared his mountain perch
but the blackbirds, they did swarm
and the crows, they did call
and here, in this late valley
of creeping dusk where all
that might have been has been forgotten
i find i have no song
and through blighted fields
it's the lazy cowbird that follows
leaving her future in others nests
and it's the felon blackbird i call
to escort me down dark alley ways
and it's here, in the tangled thicket
below the tall maple, where
the void of leaf or elegance
is swallowed in the last ray of light
drawing down the shade of hope
that i find myself silent
deep in the shadow
of the winter raven
