Empty Nest
Empty Nest (Poem)
As cream is churned to butter
So thoughts, once churned, will ache
As all one’s joys and flutters
Succumb like speech to stutters
To hearts that flow like water
Without a thirst to slake.
The winds of change shall ever blow
To lift, and carry on
The growing soul through freedom’s skies
Where each hello and each goodbye
Like tears that fall from loving eyes
Leave home to face the dawn.
To some, the past’s a garment
One casts off into sand
And yet, a skin to others
To rip and tear each strand
But breath – where does it come from?
Are lungs filled with the past?
Or breathed anew each morning
Embraced as each were last?
O Nightingale, your song has sung
Now silence is the bed
That every night begets your tongue
Though mem’ries still they fill your lungs
With words that go unsaid.
But know the gift you once received
That little one that you conceived –
The goals together you achieved –
Now form a song in brand new key
Resounding on amongst the trees
In lands afar, o’er distant seas
You live in them, and they in you
Though both will see a different view.
- A. J. Darkholme (March 2022)
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Empty Nest (Lyrics)
[Intro]
When you've been apart for oh so long
And songs they sung become a hum
Keep holding on to every crumb
To pain... do not succumb
[Verse 1]
The winds of change shall always blow
To lift, to break, to let us grow
Each soul takes flight in freedom’s highs
As hellos bleed into goodbyes
Like tears that fall from loving eyes
They leave the nest to face new skies
[Bridge]
The past is a garment, to some it feels torn
To others the skin in which we were born
[Chorus]
Empty nest, feels so alone
But your song still echoes, your love still grows
They take the skies, they chase the seas
But carry you in memories
Empty nest, yet never gone
Your voice still sings in every song
[Verse 2]
Does breath come only from the past?
Or rise anew with every gasp?
Each morning shines, a chance to see
The moment lived eternally
The nightingale... your song has sung
Now silence rests upon your tongue
But memories still fill your lungs
With words unspoken, yet not undone
[Chorus]
Empty nest, feels so alone
But your song still echoes, your love still grows
They take the skies, they chase the seas
But carry you in memories
Empty nest, yet never gone
Your voice still sings in every song
[Bridge]
The gift you held, the life you gave
The dreams you built, the love you saved
Now carried on in different keys
Resounding through the endless trees
They live in you, you live in them
Though eyes may see from different ends
[Breakdown]
O Nightingale, your song’s not through
The silence still belongs to you!
O Nightingale, they’ll always know
The roots you gave, the way they’ll grow
[Chorus]
Empty nest, feels so alone
But your song still echoes, your love still grows
They take the skies, they chase the seas
But carry you in memories
Empty nest, yet never gone
Your voice still sings in every song
[Outro]
You live in them, and they in you
Though both now see a different view