Without words
It was my own fault
I had read too much
in the sparrow's eye
that caught mine
while the bird balanced
itself on a low twig
of the front-lawn bush
I was stupidly convinced
we could go on from there
discuss weather and woes
the sad economy that yielded
few dollars and fewer worms
I thought I had at last realized
here on this August morning
my favorite childhood dream
of speaking and understanding
the foreign tongue of animals
but what the sparrow saw
reflected in the mirror of my eye
was itself, brown wings
gently rising and falling
with each tiny breath
the sky behind its head
the slow-moving clouds
beckoning new flight
and when it heeded
that cumulus call
I watched the twig rustle
as the sparrow soared high
and it brought to mind
in the pain of a moment
how little we had said
in parting when your plane
carried you away forever
into deceptively friendly skies
#
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 48 sec read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXAXXXX XXXBX XCXCX XAXCX DXXBXXA XXDXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 837 |
Words | 161 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 5, 5, 5, 7, 6 |
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"Without words" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/91523/without-words>.
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