...Little Bird...

A sing-song giggle and then a gasp,

I stir and wonder what has passed.

Then a little sob escapes nearby

As a tiny, saddened child draws nigh

With bobbing curls of golden hair

She leans against my workplace chair

“Francis, look, it’s broken again,” she says,

Her hands cupped gently around the mess

Of a singing bird, now silent, twisted gears.

I watch her brown eyes pool with tears,

“Can you fix it?” she asks, and I wonder

To fix the bird, or her heart torn asunder

By years of neglect and abuse and pain

And all that she’s suffered again and again.

This singing bird was her dearest toy

And, other than me, her only joy.

When she came to me, her life was grief

My gift, the tiny bird, her only relief

The bird, a knowledge and craft now lost,

cannot be fixed, and I fear and hate the cost

Shall my little girl now have to suffer

For my failure to care for her better?

Because I cannot fix what time has torn

From man’s mind and skill now shorn.

“Not this time,” I whisper to her softly,

My eye landing on the wing glued poorly.

I take from her hands all the fragile bits

And place them on my workbench to sit

Until such a time as a man remembers

How to repair without age-old answers.

Her brown eyes crinkle as the tears fall,

But she brushes them aside with a smile.

“That’s okay,” she says to me, glowing

Her arms around me tightly throwing.

“I have you still, that’s all I need.

Just stay with me,” she gently pleads.

My heart is in tears, so happy with relief

As I fondly hug her back and gratefully agree.