Between The Walls

HE WILL NOT DROWN HIS SORROWS Man to man. If only I knew more about the human heart, I could fuel its fire or stamp it out completely. If only I knew more about songbirds, I could tell you exactly what is singing there unseen in that tree across the street that song has been, so far, the best part of my day, a song as old as our four-chambered hearts, older maybe, a melody composed a million years ago and never altered surely musical genius thrived before the wheel, before our weapons and our calculus, and when we're gone that song will continue in the trees and will not change. But we know that song, too. We were born with its notes and rests transcribed in the cells of our own warm blood and we've sung it more or less unsuccessfully in a hundred-odd cities between us, lone birds in full throat, joyous and unheard. And we've fallen silent, sullen, drunk, when our song has failed too often. But not that bird across the street he will not drown his sorrows, because he has none. He will sing until his lady comes or, in her place, his death, always proud, always singing, and you know as well as I do what he does not feel: the bitterness of solitude, and you also understand there are times when, if I could catch him, I would break his neck and end it so he will not have to sing his song alone.Vermeersch, Paul is the author of 'Between The Walls', published 2005 under ISBN 9780771087448 and ISBN 0771087446.