Nightsong by Dan Murphy

It’s 1:11 a.m.
and O Lord that bird
singing since 11 o’clock
that midnight bird
with musical complaint
won’t shut up
for us to sleep
O Lord that bird
is sick in love
not sick with love
I think his feathered
brain has gone haywire
and drunk
with night sadness
I think O Lord
this is not midnight love
not a blue valentine
strung between trees
in late June
and hung for O Lord
some lonely warbler
by some songbird
who won’t shut up
God I hate that bird
Tell me O Lord
O God those notes
strung nocturnally
that connect
Point A to Point B
X to Y and man to woman
that voluble one
whose sweet sentence
and coy syllable
might catch an ear-ringed
ear with sweet-tongued
word and wry phrase
what the bird intends
who keeps us up
restless and in love
and who are we
to question Nature
that cannot stop itself

Dan Murphy lives, works, and writes in Los Angeles. He is an elementary school teacher in the LAUSD and has had poems published in The Cortland Review, North American Review, Field, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Askew, and Image, as well as Chaparral. 
For the record, he loves Maria, Sami and Sara.