Theme and Variations by Merril D. Smith

Beyond my window, beyond the beyond
of timeless time, the star-birds sing
with mockingbird tenacity
sweeping beats of gleaming feather-light across a thousand nights.
We gaze without, withdrawn within
withstanding without understanding
the death all around. But light-song
finds its way from that bright beginning bang, to scatter like geese--
in honking flight, I watch them soar
reflected in the river-ripples, white on blue and grey.
When spring comes again—and it will—
there will be downy chicks, golden like the sun,
and when the darkness returns--and it will—
the star-birds will still twitter with incandescent chirps
sparking the sparkling chords of the universe
in an ever-changing refrain,
this, an eternal song.
Merril D. Smith writes from southern New Jersey. Her poetry and short fiction have been published most recently in Anti-Heroin Review, Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, the Ekphrastic Review, and Fevers of the Mind. Twitter: @merril_mds