Song For The Old Year Poem by John E Marks

Redemption comes at such a cost
Freezing winds off the Irish sea
Blow me away from hearth and home
At such a cost - loss pressing on loss -
Yet still the winter-birds sing,
Seemingly so carelessly,
And we know it costs them their whole life
To fly this way and sing and eat and build and build
Yet still this merely human, framed of earth,
Cannot scrape away the curse of discontent:
Sitting solid as a rock, squatting squarely
On the chest where a bird would build a nest
Then fly high high into the blue skies of summer
So far, far away from this deep and dark complacency.