Nightbird

The leaves outside my window are bathed in the muted amber glow
of the artificial lighting lining the sidewalk. 
A solemn nightbird calls out from the trembling branches,
a sad song of the lonesome bird that chooses the night to call its home. 
It only knows the light of distant stars and the electric light,
while its forgotten brothers bathe in golden rays of heavenly sunlight. 
It chooses distant echoes of its own call
instead of the chorus of the morning birds that gather on the same shaking branches. 

The daybirds greet the rising sun, the new day, a new life—
the nightbird greets the gasping shadows from the night’s choking hold
without the hope of a bright new future. 
From night to night the nightbird only sees the shadows, the black, the darkness.
Who would believe in the fulfillment of light when all you know is the emptiness of night? 
Light is something harsh and cold. It is the unfeeling contraptions made by man.
Constructs that simply flicker out when their time comes. 
The stars are so distant in the night sky. 
They’re nothing more than specks of dust caught in the whistling wind. 

What is light to the nightbird? Light is a lie. 
Caught in a chaotic unbreakable chain of night after night. 
The nightbird sees no flip side to the absence of light. 
The nightbird is ignorant of the bright new day,
of light that ushers in the hope of a new tomorrow. 

In the morning, it’s not an echoed reply to your strangled cry for companionship. 
In the morning, your cry is met with the hope of a chorus of songbirds praising the light.