Best Songbird Poems
Mission of the Yellow Songbird
A long highway road stretched its legs before me,
In a place where tumble weeds were conceived,
December evening chasing daylight back to morning
Dusk robed in faded colors starving out the sunshine
Miles put themselves between me and home
With thickets of brier brambles cradled between north and south
Alive with vesper choruses of tiny songbirds.
A gentle tap on my front fender
Roused me from hypnotic highway stupor like popping thunder
I shuddered deeply as possibilities shook my soul;
Maybe one of those gigantic bugs – maybe? Maybe?
But when I stopped my heart seized to solve the mystery
A tiny yellow songbird plastered to my grill wings still open to flight.
Gentle spirit of eternal compassion touched, caressed, my wailing sorrow
Then guided me to a desert tree with perfect boughs,
That welcomed songs of matin mornings from a tiny bird,
To lay to rest God's tiny messenger beneath his favorite tree
Songbird with perfect pitch would no longer sing praise into Heaven's face.
Called to the road again, tears raced down my cheeks
As numb miles raced by with a litany of why in each drop
Time came to take a mountain road from fertile valley to foggy ocean crest -
Screaming round a sharp curve to a screeching stop
Accident, I thought, of two cars only six cars ahead of me –
No ordinary scene -two burned out fiery shells one atop the other!
Realization, like a candle in the darkness, sent out sharp beams
I would have been in that accident had not a precious songbird
Given me a second chance to sing in ministry and embrace this grief;
In the deepest part of my grieving heart, I know our precious God
Gathered to his heart the mission of this tiniest crushed warrior
Who now sings beneath God’s window in the eternal day.
5-17-22
Contest: Divine Intervention
Sponsor: Chantal Anne Cooke
12/14/22
Contest: Poetry Marathon Mile 23
Sponsor: Mark Toney
30 Lines of a 30 Line Limit
2025 Poetry Marathon Mile 14 Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
Contest Judged: 9/6/2025 12:49:00 PM
( 1st Place )
Written: September 04, 2025
They said the songbird
her wings twisted and torn
should quiet herself...
that the sky held no place
for the fragile or the worn.
Yet she kept a sky tucked inside her - a
place untouched by any hand.
At daylight she let her voice rise
and though her body stayed earthbound,
her song lifted past the edge of flight.
The wind slowed to listen,
branches bent nearer
and the horizon seemed to pause,
stirred by her willfulness .
Each note unlaced an old wound,
each chorus pushed against the walls
of a world that once turned her away.
Her feathers never mended,
yet her dream grew wide enough
to shelter every broken one who followed.
From her we understood:
reaching the sky
was never about wings at all.
I glisten
in the shining wind. . .
oh, songbird, fly me away
April 19, 2017
N/A in a haiku contest
robin's melody
rings true from the Hawthorn tree~
sweet sound among thorns.
Dear little songbird,
With your beak of gold;
Wearing untidy feathers,
Sing a song sweetly told.
The wings of my songbird,
Seek blue fields above;
Where my feathered songster,
Serenades his love.
With wings opened wide,
He soars in the skies;
His darting and swooping,
Gives delight to my eyes.
He sings in the twilight,
Where my soul comes to be;
Joining the fireflies,
High up in the tree.
Dear little songbird,
Sing your hymn in the blue;
For I have no wings,
To fly with you.
Melodies traversing upon
Winds of the desert painting
Misplaced beauty of Saguaro’s
Dancing with dust devil’s
Sagebrush songs echoing off
Mountainous mirage of valley
Floors endlessly stretching past
Horizon bleeding red clay
Strewing the endless highway
Going nowhere coming back
Against the curtain of heat
Cooling with the light touch
Of rain disappearing in the sands
Ever moving never changing
Clouding storms covering tracks
I followed to find your voice
Hidden in the desolate gardens
Saturated with fervent life
Unseen flitting about my eyes
Singing in cactus blooms
Flowering for the moment
Passing with a breath
Expelling a hundred degree
Harmony from the hidden
Little desert songbird calling
Past the boundaries set
Bringing me back to where
I have always been
I listened to his sweet refrain,
How I loved his melody.
To my delight he sang again,
From the branches of a tree.
I imagined, that he'd sang for me.
A Poem for the Grey Shrike written on Earth Day 2016
At sunrise while asleep
I was called by a bird tweet
Like a childhood song
So sharp so sweet
Awoke. Washed. Dressed . Prepared to greet
But the voice got swallowed by the noise of the street
Oh son: let's go . This trip will go down a treat
Entered a beach garden. Green. Simple n Neat
The Mown grass was wet. And the son waded the feet
Despite the moist. Despite the light. Despite the heat
Scanned the shrubs & trees. Then heard the beat
Like a childhood song. So sharp so sweet
Sped and goggled. To see. To snap. To greet n meet
A silvery spot. Perching. Scanning. Landing to eat
A worm, an insect, a snake, a mouse or a piece of meat
It was a grey shrike. Mature. Strong. Hard to beat
Despite the moist. Despite the light. Despite the heat
Came to see. To hear the voice. So sharp so sweet
Foregoing the fool
A tattered heart slept
In a reticule.
Two drawstrings pulled tight
To obscure the light.
Emotions fraught
With second thought
Perfected a
Silent reply.
Nightingales
With clipped wings
Rarely sing.
Free your
Soul and
Fly!
Dedicated to my wonderfully terrific Father:
02/14/2003
Happy Valentines Day, Dad.
Miss and will always love you, Johnny.
The songbird
Free from being caged
Her melody is beautiful
Because she is no longer afraid
She doesn't sing for your amusement
The songbird does not sing for fame
Oh, she sings for love
Because it can not be tamed
Born wild
Songbirds of all types and colors
Fathers
Brothers
Sisters
Mothers
Beauty deserves to be set free, and
She honored everyone
When that sweet relief
Of freedom hit her wings
When she flew away for the first time
It was a spectacle to see
She perched and landed
Upon a giant sequoia tree
She held no resentment
And the only matter that
She was now captured by
Was her new profound view
The songbird has love in her heart
And that's one thing you can't steal
The music in her voice
Obstructed my fear, she
Began to guide me with her remedy and
I assented, with my mind now clear
It was incredible
The power echoing through her
The enchantment that she showed
Admiring her strength
Tiny in form but beautiful in design
Reminding me that love conquers all
I could feel my sorrows, turn into hope
I had burst with senses of a budding flower, ready to grow
Oh, how hearing her..
Through my layers
She peeled
Oh, how my encounter with her..
Made me feel
Like a songbird, too
Songbird, dost thou recall our verse,
lyrics that fueled adolescent hearts
afire?
Painting smiles during ever the
worse,
with soothing voice impervious to
tire.
Thus I listened with mine ears
compelled free,
sans shield against thine alluring
voice.
I recall the tune which rang of we...
Thoust sang for me, with fervor, by
choice.
Yet, silent hast now become thy song
of I,
entwined to thee with immutable
grin.
Though memories of music seldom
die,
I fear, of me, thou shall ne'er sing
again.
If such a fright is that which must
be...
Why hast thy voice alone ever
touched me?
You are such a songbird ..but so out of tune
I am young but old
I watch youths fall in love and ...
my heart swells with joy-
and hurt
for I know I shall never feel such feelings again.
From under the depths I watch as the world passes before me-
My time had stopped.
My voice lost in my thoughts
I no longer sing.
Yet the wind carries my songs from a distant past
And I listened...
I listened to the voice of a Songbird
That is no more.
Songbird in my front yard
feeding on seed I've thrown
I can see you
because I have become
part of the silence...
Each day I learn from you
as the fish learn from the sea
the Sparrow and the Blue Jay
learn from the wide open sky..
Mockingbird I am lonely today
chant your melancholy in the still air
call for your lost lover
making the stars smile
and your mate to sing back..
Tonight I will chant for my lover
as I look for her in distant stars
perhaps they are all just nests
of celestial invisible birds...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Happy as a Songbird
days of hard rain fell
yellow tinged silence followed
birds rejoiced in song
....couple weeks ago, it rained hard for days here in Minnesota,
movement ceased for a few days...then life renewed!