Mockingbird Poem by Barry Middleton

the season steals
your beautiful melody
winter robs me
purloins your song
carried south
to warmer reaches
new world nightingale
sing your fill in spring
shout out your metaphor

linger in the summer
heat and passion
at its peak
but in the fall
a cooler breeze
transforms your refrain

no hand of man
can silence the chorale
but the seasons pass

like death I sleep
I dream
of southern heat
strains
of the mockingbird

till green appears again
flashing on the breeze
hint of white blossoms
a downy splash of gray
a song alive and joyous