It rained all night. Today
I dry-muse, inside, on tall roses
prolifically budded pink, yellow, red,
rising behind landscape layers
of glossy green. A blackbird thrashes
to the surface of the window-side shrub.
Ungraceful she is, faded black
with an eye duller than poets suspect:
nesting. Good mother, she must not blink,
must keep her head eternally cocked,
wary gaze on the shadowy unknown.
I wait, unmoving, not wanting to intrude.
(Ear eternally cocked, not even wanting
to listen, I hear the distant metal screech
of the city-bound train. Good-bye
for real, she said, stooping to kiss
her faded mother. She’s dressed for a party,
brilliantly plumed.)
I think this is an answer, of sorts, to the beautiful Prom night by Jenifer Cartland (Poems from in between).