White Notes on Black
No matter how you, blackbird, sing, the night
Will come. The flow of beauty from your beak,
Like fluid as if streaming from the height
Of hillsides or from mountain’s midday peak,
Will not give pause to coming of the dark.
No matter how you, skylark, rhapsodize,
The threat of midnight still remains still stark
Though you will wing in ecstasy. The skies
Will always burn to blackness if you sing
Your soul out as you penetrate the clouds.
No matter, mockingbird, if you make wing
Of song, pulsed beauty still will end in shrouds.
Yet if the nightingale sings notes upon
Rubato, we will count upon the dawn.
~ Phillip Whidden
