SONG
by Michael T. Young
The first sentence of a certain history
is written near an estuary, in a building
with no address, behind the last door,
at the end of a hall lined with pinewood
paneling. One of those panels, when it was
a tree, held a robin’s nest, and one of that
bird’s young managed to leap from it
and fly off into adulthood, singing.
The history being written, won’t tell
of that flight or its song. For now,
even the history isn’t believed.
The person writing it only knows
the sound of a pen scratching paper,
or, at other times, fingers tapping keys,
springs popping them back into place
at the speed of water over stones.
It’s a motion like a river, cutting a trench
through earth, a long relentless path
through hardness and muck, rushing
to unite with some oceanic belief in destiny.
Like so much else, it’s a victim
of gravity. Although sometimes, when
pausing a moment to think, just outside
the window, a robin can be heard singing.
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