Birdsongs

 

A dove mourns as the sky grows dark.

Melancholy takes the stage.

Yet against it sings a meadowlark.

 

I’ve abandoned my life’s work,

and I hear at the end of these quieter days

a dove mourns as the sky grows dark.

 

It is tempting to see the future as stark

as my diary drops another page,

but against it sings the meadowlark.

 

My fire’s grown dim but has kept a spark

now blown by God’s ruach to righteous rage.

Let a dove mourn as the sky grows dark,

 

and the sun continue its downward arc.

Let my life by time be caged—

Yet against it all sings the meadowlark.

 

What if my efforts leave few marks,

and those few marks are at last erased?

So a dove mourns as the sky grows dark?

Against it sings the meadowlark!