UP THE OAK WITH YOU Samuel Tabeart

I. As the last autumnal chirp of the south-bound sparrow sounds out, So does my aching breast for times of joy, beauty, blemished indulgence, As if to say to the world, “What manner of you has it so poorly laid out for me?”

That bird alone, with shutter of limbs fastidious, so to journey on, flies. And my fervent heart wallows, poorly and squalid, with days of fancy pale on the mind. The nest where it once lived, gone to the winds and sands of ere, A shattered mess on the paved-over streets, fossilized in a cold place, With none to hear it chirp, nor a chirp to be heard.

II. The sparrow, in its shimmies and dips, has nothing for me. The sparrow flies as it will, making amends with none and ties to none; The sparrow lives ceaselessly, not I.

Jouissance a grounded illusion, playing across kindle twigs, though not those of the sparrow’s nest. Nothing for me, nor anyone, happy as a sparrow; Loft corporeal, lift dimensional, scintillate and free.

Mockery of worldliness, I, a fallen leaf of nature’s branch; Sparrow free and scintillate, oak extending to the skies.

III. Come to me now, mourning dove Lay home in my sill, cracked, Chiseled by wind and rain.

Paint peels, though under your nest, Sprawling quiet, beneath my window, Permeating temperature, it finds shelter.

In years to come, the house shall wither, Paint fades, you know. You’ll be long gone, by then, I, too, up the oak with you.

My sill lives on, under your nest, The paint not cracked, nor Chiseled.