I Speak For the Dead

Note: This poem is the twin poem for "She Speaks for the Dead." This one is in the mockingbird's perspective. I perch upon the locked gate, awaiting the deepest hour of night. My abode is among the shadows of the gravestones, still and weathered. There I hear a faint sound of bare feet along the grass, And I see a Woman near the cypress tree. She is frail and clad in robes— She looks at peace with the world, and with Death. But the Woman stops as if she is waiting for something, listening for something in the stillness. Could it be my own voice that She is calmly awaiting? Some trills of Truth to break Their silence? I feel a change in the air as the shadows deepen on the headstones, the monuments, the cypresses, the gate. I begin to speak for Them and that Woman with the gleaming yet respite eyes I begin to speak for Her. My channeled chirps are variations of lives once lived, and my growing audience is vastly keen.