NightBird

Since when do birds sing at night ?

I lie there listening

Wondering

If I’ve missed this my whole life

Or if something in me has only now grown quiet enough to hear it

It doesn’t sound mistaken

It doesn’t sound lost

Just one note

Then another

Falling into the dark as if it belongs there

Since when does the night allow this?

I thought it was meant
to close things

To gather everything inward

To soften it into silence

But the bird does not soften

It continues

As though the hour is not an ending but an opening

And I begin to wonder

Since when have we decided there is a right time to be heard ?

Because the bird does not wait

It does not hold back
until morning makes sense of it

It sings because it is awake

And I am awake too

In the same dark

Under the same quiet sky

Carrying something just as restless

Just as certain

Just as unwilling to be quiet

And it comes to me simple, undeniable

We are not different

We have only learned

To wait

The bird has not

It sings as if the hour
cannot contain it

And I lie there listening not only to the sound

But to the space it opens in me

And the question it leaves behind

Since when did I begin to believe – I had to be silent just because it was night?

‘NightBird’