The Mocking Bird On The Tree Fronting The House... Poem by RIC BASTASA

a mocking bird
sits on a branch of a tree
that fronts the house that
papa made

papa is gone.

a mocking bird left but one
sunny day

after the heavy rains for months
the mocking bird comes back

it is bringing silence
unlike all the other mocking birds
in town

the mocking bird is dead
a boy abandoned by his mother
stoned it

now the window if you walk a little
distant from the house
and sit on a bench across the road
looks like a Cheshire cat
giving Alice that fable smile.