Give me Birdsong

In the dark times will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times.
Bertolt Brecht

Give me bird song
to lighten the sadness,
the coming dark.

Give me rainfall
to sweeten November grass.

Give me long summer nights
and Danish choirs singing
into the light that lasts
until September.

Give me a woman in black
playing piano in the shadows
where we cannot see her.
Let the melody and music
float down to us below,
beside the crooked house
with tilting stairs,
white linens.

Give me what is broken, but true.
For I have grown to hate
 a song that hits all the right noes
but has no blackedged heart.

Let my brokenness
be bird song.

Jennifer Boire

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be
your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~David Whyte