The Whippoorwill’s Song

Well, not to bore you, but I promised yesterday that I would do a couple more posts, taking you back to my early teenage years when I used to write poetry.

However, before I share the next poem with you, I have to show you something that will make you laugh me to scorn.

See this lovely book? Yes, yes, it’s a dictionary. You know, what we used to use before everything went online.

Before we had internet at our house a few weeks ago, I found myself in a quandary. I needed to check the spelling of a word, and to my horror, I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t just look it up on the internet. But then I had this vague remembrance of how I actually used to look words up in this book. So, after pilfering through my library, I found this and dusted off the cover. I opened it up….to find…

This.

This, my dear friends, is the evidence that I am a nerd. You see, I love beautiful words so much that I use to actually peruse through my dictionary in my spare time and highlight all the lovely words I could find.

Go, ahead…laugh. I don’t care. Because I’m going to be an genius when I grow up and then you’ll all be jealous.

And with that…I now introduce you to my next poem:

The Whippoorwill’s Song

(written November 21, 1993)

Dark into the summer night,
When the doe has gone to sleep.
I hear a little song,
Soft but deep.

This song, it rests upon me
And fills my mind with dreams.
I lay and think of creatures in the night,
While in the forest dances moonbeams.

Yet, soon I ceased to hear this song
And I did not understand.
“What happened to the song of the Whippoorwill?”,
I would demand.

“What happened to the melody
I listened to so long?”
“What happened to the Whippoorwill’s
uncanny song?”

Soon the snowflakes began to drizzle
And rest upon the grass.
Soon the ponds in the field
Dressed themselves in sheets of glass.

The frosty months of winter went by
With each passing day.
And then small shoots of grass came up
And the fawn came out to play.

The flowers bloomed, and evenings passed,
And still no song I heard.
And so I hoped and dreamed to hear again
The lullaby of this bird.

The days of spring were wondrous,
Although they slowly passed.
Then they became much warmer
For summer was here at last!

Yes, then one summer night
To my window I was lured,
And the song of not one,
But two Whippoorwill I heard!

~Whippoorwill…Whippoorwill…Whippoorwill.

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