When the Catbird No Longer Sings

When the catbird calls,

It flutters and stalls.

Drawing you to the window,

Carefully you tiptoe.

Singing its song,

You follow along.

Tweeting and trilling,

It is all so thrilling.

Until it flies away,

Exhausted for the day.

-

When the catbird returns,

You listen with heightened nerves.

Its melody transposing to an elegy,

The mourning evoking a melancholy.

It lingers in subdued silence,

As if it's lost its natural guidance.

Flustered and in a hurry,

It takes flight in a flurry.

In your stomach the uneasiness settles,

Like wilted and shriveled and rotten petals.

-

When the catbird no longer sings,

When it can no longer flap its wings,

When the catbird no longer waits,

Nothing quite equates.

No more chittering and chattering,

You find something shattering.

It is quiet and still,

Its life cut short against its will.

But it still sings without the magic of its voice,

As you sit and ponder the weight of nature's choice.