The whippoorwill trills
over and over
in the night
lonely, looking
waiting for her to call back to him.
Sometimes he hears her
and they sing for awhile.
Sometimes he gives up
and goes to sleep
until tomorrow.
We used to listen with him
in the night
waiting for her to call back
so they could sing,
hoping they’d find each other
like we had.
When he found her,
we’d smile at each other for awhile
as they sang.
And then we’d go to sleep
until tomorrow.
Now I sit alone
in the night
listening to the whippoorwill trilling
over and over
lonely, looking,
wishing you had called back to me
singing and smiling,
until we found each other again,
instead of giving up
leaving me to sleep
without you
until all my tomorrows.
~ cj 2013.05.07
Tonight, he found her, and they had quite a time singing. I listened, and wrote this poem. But now, it’s time for me to go to sleep until tomorrow.
I really like this poem — the melancholy, the metaphor, the sense of loneliness. And thank you for including the audio of the “duet” you were blessed with tonight. (In high school, I wrote a haiku for an English assignment that protested the Vietnam War and had the word whippoorwill in it. That’s all I remember of it, but I guarantee your poem is far more beautiful than my haiku was. 😉 )
<3
Worth the wait CJ. Very nice. Almost as good as the last one!
Thank you Steve. 🙂