Bird on a Bough

[homer1950]

Bird on a Bough

Dear, save your words until the day.
    Now, let only the door
speak its uneven memories;
    just hold me, as before.

The truth and its prerogative
    to hear its perfect sound
may yet be stayed; and if, in this
    delay, reprieve is found,

other wayward hearts await
    for truth to tear asunder.

Words, they kill, they desecrate,
    they confiscate our wonder;
but when has man been true, or even
    once desist to blunder

from his reckless gait?  Hush now,
    a bird sings from the bough.
Tonight, his song will be our shepherd,
    if we can so allow.

It speaks nothing and asks nothing,
    so hold me, hold me now.

Don't ask me why, but when I wrote this poem, I was imagining a 19th-century setting in the woods with a cabin.  Consequently, the poem has an old-fashioned flavor, but I'm satisfied with that.

In the first stanza, it used to say "Now, let only the walls speak their uneven memories", but it didn't rhyme, so I substituted "door".  The idea that the walls might be listening to us isn't so unusual, but I wonder if doors have enough symbolic weight to be used in such a way.  We enter and leave through doors, so they have at least some symbolism, I think.

I used "desist" (which means to cease) for the meter, but I wonder if it sounds too odd.  If I can't use "desist", I'll use "cease".

Thank you.

Hey Caleb,

I certaintly get a feel for the age in which you wanted to set your work. Yet instill, your substitutions for the sake of meter; seem to take away from (and are somewhat of a distraction) figuring out exactly what you are trying to convey here.

Thanks, 
Homer