The Blackbird

There’s a blackbird outside my window, 

but he doesn't sing. 

His golden eyes glow like horizons,  

pupils like sinking ships. 

He smiles sometimes, 

his crooked smile. 

He says “Embrace God 

and embrace love; 

Indulge in the silence 

and enjoy words only half begun.” 

I stand on the corner, 

at the place where the crumbling curb 

leaks like oil onto the road. 

Someone spoke to me; 

something about dreams and memories. 

But I trudged on, 

fighting the torrents as I went down the "mobway." 

The ceiling has a murdered look, 

something adults don't remember 

and children can’t explain. 

Ice drips down like fingers on a crooked hand, 

reaching to pick up something dropped along the way. 

Winds blow like deep breaths, 

and hearts beat like waters flow. 

That is where the blackbird sings. 

He flies up to heaven on wings of wax. 

He holds onto grace with knuckles white. 

His mourning defines his day, 

and his thoughts drift like secondhand smoke.

He loves like Hemingway 

and dies like a bad joke. 

But he still speaks to me, 

whispering sometimes. 

His smile is the same, 

His laughter still fills rooms. 

He still teaches about the good kind of love. 

“Do as I say, 

not as I do,” 

he says. 

“And the world will be 

all the better.” 

Maybe he was right. 

I’ll ask him someday.