Anne: The Purple Finch

Anne: The Purple Finch*

A Free Verse Poem on Loss and Longing

Anne, your body like a purple finch perched

on the hemlock’s last bare branch—

mid-winter, here in our cold north—

your eyes bright as the berry

she weighs in her beak, uncertain

if this chill is the final freeze,

or if warmth lingers on the horizon.

You hesitate, as she does—

should she trust the thin blue promise

of morning, or surrender

to the instinct that calls her southward,

away from the crackling frost, away from me?

My breath is ice, my hands are empty nests.

I plead: remain, just a season more,

linger in this snowbound quiet,

your colours vivid against my grey longing.

Let migration wait. Let the wind be wrong.

Do not fly, not yet,

leave me not in this cold alone.

Your friend,

Robert

https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/