My Only Gift

Israel Smith

Being a pauper born to shift alone,
Capriciously allured by every gust
That rattles leaves across a cobblestone,
Obsessed by connotations in their rust;
And being compelled, from lack of kinder fire,
To chafe my fingers at a travelling moon
And stretch my sleeping to a bed of briar,
Dawn shuttling not too early nor too soon -
And with less mansion than a spider boasts
To thread translucent tapestries along -
I offer you, as refuge from dark hosts,
My only gift, and that essential song:
A heart a little bruised from loneliness
And like a wounded lark for timidness.