“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
Emily Dickinson
INSPIRATIONAL
In a field of snow, I thought I saw
red berries on the branches of a tree,
but homing in, I discovered
it was but the breast of a lone robin
calling out to me
Robin, living in the hope of spring,
where love grows in a field of dreams,
though snow lay on the ground,
Earth Mother’s way of preserving
any kinder options
I stumbled, watching the robin fly
all but blindly, nor was I even looking
for hope to kindle my soul;
you took that with you when you left
along with spring
How my legs found the will to move
I can only guess was to honour the bird
as it returned, its bitter-sweet song
at a twilight in shreds for winter’s claws,
the loneliest ever heard
It was then you put your hand in mine,
and I lay my weary head on your shoulder,
as against all odds we staggered home
together, just as we had sworn ever to stay
through growing older
At the door of our house, we parted,
a glorious light in your eyes like a rainbow
among my tears you wiped dry
with the same hand that still wore my ring,
a guiding light in the snow
I thought I heard you speak my name
then saw it was but the wings of my robin
vanishing where yet I dare not go
but would, in time, just as those same tears
had followed your coffin
If a robin can see the cruelty of winter through,
be sure we lovers, though parted, can too
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2020
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'The Robin' in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]
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