Mockingbird

I know a hundred songs,
not a one of them my own.
An aria of lies,
swirling in the branches
where I hop and sway,
the beckoning ground so far below,
the heavens impossibly distant.

I call to strangers in a stolen voice,
chest puffed full
of false pride and remembered melody;
a full-throated holler of call and response,
to other’s nests, to other’s mates,
barely pausing to listen for echoes.

Knowing,
alone among the winged,
knowing in reflection and repose
what they learn only in that moment
when the line between the worlds
is as thin as a bending twig;
knowing what the sparrow knows
only when the raptor’s shadow falls
and the talons sink in;

too small
too slow
too old
not enough
not enough for my own song.