The Birds

The birds they call, they call my name.

They have called me to explain,
my absence for the month of June,
May and every other day.

My ineptness they’ve laid plain.

A man with coins,
a man with few.
I can’t recall the story.
With no coins left and no defence,
I listen to them calling.

These messengers of God they say,

you’re the one who wasted your stay,
whose coins never saw the light of day.
So much you could have given
yet you always went astray.

Life was hard

and coins could buy
numbness for my soul,
darkened doors
always called,
while grace just let me go.

Not so, not so, not so, they sing,

these messengers of God.
Grace was in the morning.
Grace was in our song.
Grace was in the dewy grass.
In every baby’s cry.
We saw you, saw you, saw you pass us by.

Pass you by I did, I say,

my passions all fired up.
Babies cry before they die
and mornings never come.
Grace did not fill my cup.

The messengers were quiet now.
I believed that I had won.
They left me with a last retort
that ended our exchange.

Though life is sad and dark, they said,
an end comes to it soon.
For you now something else remains:
eternity that looms.