SONGBIRD

You awake suddenly in the night and there is nothing.

No sound.

Then slowly, haltingly at first, just outside the window.

A songbird. Beautiful.

Now building.

Not especially loud, but clear.

A simple scale, a handful of notes.

Now repeating.

Beautiful.

You lie there awake and there is nothing else.

The notes of the songbird go on, as they repeat you begin

to anticipate each one.

There is a syncopation to them and, as there is nothing else, the realization soon comes to you.

The song is everything.

As you come to know this the beauty fades.

The voice of the songbird becomes irritating.

It is the middle of the night.

With this noise there can be no sleep.

You lie there awake wishing the noise would stop.

Even as you wish it you hear each note before it exists.

Then it is gone.

The songbird has stopped.

You lie there awake and there is nothing.

Now the absence of sound becomes a sound itself.

There is a presence to the lack of sound that becomes more powerful with each moment that passes.

The songbird that took away the silence has been taken away by a new silence.

You lie there awake in silence wishing the noise would cease.

You lie there a very long time.

You lie there still, to this very minute of this very day, trapped between the presence and the absence.

Like a silent body pressed breathless between the floors.

Caught between the singing bird and the screaming silence.

Longing for the moment before the songbird had sung.

Knowing, like morning, it will never return.

(I think this was written in the late 1980s)