The Last Bluebird
A poem
From the ‘Letters to my Daughter’
In every year, there is a February.
The last breath of southern summer,
Unremarkable, but for the dull, soggy air,
No dawns ‘in russet mantle clad,’ as the bard wrote far away and long ago,
Only winds rustling in the nights, rains falling in the mornings,
Steel-grey and ashen,
I watch it all from my window,
Waiting for the same day each year,
The day you donned a pretty blue dress and went out with your friend,
It was Saturday, 24th of February,
Girls’ night out, the two of you called it.
Later, in your calendar, you penned:
Met Luke = worst day of my life.
Six months later, you were no more.
Six years later, the same unanswered question circles like a vulture:
Why, my child?
If you had known, if you had sensed it right away, why surrender?
Why let it take you down?
It was like taking down the last bluebird on earth.
Why?
Because sensing the danger didn’t mean you could escape it,
Or because bluebirds only know the colour blue, the bluest of the blues, And so, to a bluebird, every sky is a…
