Sing

 

Sing

No promise is needed for a bird to sing.
It lives its afterlife as it sings.

Do birds entertain hopes for blessings,
As do children with hymnals taught to sing?

Is the misanthrope blessed who would wring
The neck of the sleep-wrecking bird as it sings?

The syrinx of a bird makes a song a two-note thing,
With loads of guilt, I croak one note as I sing.

Can figurative speech loaded with meaning
Carry a simple tune we can sing?

And so we are cursed to dreary humming
Tunes of songs that make us cry if we sing.

Birds of yore carried letters, the love thing,
Wisely dropped from on high so they could sing.

Are flight songs impure, ruses for mating?
My throat squawks at her window trying to sing.