Elegy for a Robin

Today I held a dying bird,
Cradled in rough hands and icy light,
And watched its little feathers stirred
By bitter winds, like final flight
Had called its quivering soul to some great rest,
As if beyond this fear its fluttering life would go,
As if its fledgling heart atop the nest
Was poised to scoop the sky; but no,
What should it know of death? It lived,
And dimming dreamt of days that would not die,
And starling hopes too high for man to touch.
The cars creep by. One death is not so much.
A thousand things lived on, and so did I.

Thomas Clark