Birdsong– to my grandchild

Author: My First Name

A robin swings in the sunshine
Singing a sweet spring note
As my son says
I broke up with my girlfriend.
She called to say she had an abortion.

The bird still sings, but the sunlight
Fades to a pale stain.
So casually,
There was a child, my grandchild,
Now there is none.
He shrugs.
She wouldn’t have been a good mother.

It is I who was not a good mother.
So many lessons unlearned.
I didn’t know.
Oh God, I didn’t know.
In the tree the dark birds sit and stare.

No woman bears a child to herself alone,
She bears it to all of us,
And the one who is lost is lost to us all.

Now where will I go to hold that sweet child,
To kiss his downy head?
Nowhere in all the world.
The dark vultures circle and come home, come home, come home to roost.
And my white dove has flown to Mary’s breast.