Dear Nightingale
(for Heidi)
Dear Nightingale!. You know how circumstance
(The sudden loss of one long-loved,
Or brute injustice piled by cruel chance
Upon the ruins of high hopes),
Can cause despair. Moan no threnodic chants,
But sing of happiness, both past
And yet to be!. Let Fate’s blunt weapons glance
From your invulnerable soul
As raindrops, from sleek feathers, lightly dance
During cool-showered Summer nights;
Forgotten in dawn’s fresh exuberance.
You symbolise, (for those whose lives of sad
Experience weigh heavily
On heart and mind), the certainty of glad
Tomorrows, when oppressive cares
Shall be relieved by many, myriad!),
Delights which doubted future holds.
Your soft voice, soothing through the night – Dryad
Of gloaming groves when threatening, dark
Obscurities distress – sings dawn will add
Pleasures surpassing hurt’s worst woes;
New joys shall heal sores, howsoever bad.
Because you are not ignorant of pain
You understand it’s transient, like rain:
So raise rhapsodic songs and cheerfully regale
Our hapless, hopeful human hearts, dear Nightingale!.
