Birdsong

I stretch my hands - what will I have of you

now sweet November races to its end;

this month of holes that I keep falling through,

unable to reach out to you, my friend.

For now I know the silence loss can bring,

how empty days will fill with nothing much;

how, brokenly, I lift myself to sing

and feel the press of words I dare not touch.

Then yesterday I heard an old songbird

whose chicks had lived and died or fledged and flown.

She sang the sweetest song I ever heard;

a song which told me I was not alone.

My love, for now, let’s stop our sorrowing.

Let’s find a branch to lift our beaks and sing.