I penned this poem today to try to convey the gradual, painful, and merciless nature of loss. Truly, I feel I have been robbed of everything except to see in the dark.

 

Oh to hear the sound of an unbroken heart

Unchanged and untouched, a true work of art

It sings as it runs and it pounds and it leaps,

Unchanged by the time, the sun or the heat

 

I can’t hear it break and I can’t hear it ring

I feel it is warm but the bird does not sing

Its feathers are blue and as damp as the spring

Breathing and warm, and I can’t hear a thing

 

I see now a small bird that never will fly

I can’t hear its song and neither its sigh

I no longer feel the heat or the chill

But I see two sad eyes on my windowsill

 

I see the rain choose to run left then run right

I see the heart black and I see the bird’s fright

The rain is now gone and the velvet is dark

I see through the silence and the crack in the heart

 

Absolute black, no sight and no ground

Sands of the clock stopped moving around

Outside my window there’s safe and no sound

Wounded and tight, there is safe and no sound.

-Marlies Vonn

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