Tiny Pebbles

Futile wings beat against an

unrelenting, frosty August wind.

Cry though she might, and

struggle she may, still she is pinned.

Until of course, battle lost and

hope long gone before it was,

she gave up on trying and fell

to the sand as each gull does.

A man who walked down the sea-side

with knotted knee and crooked cane

saw the poor fowl tumble down and when

he found her, he tried to heal her pain.

He nursed her back to health and

when it came time to let her go,

he reluctantly opened her cage.

Out she stepped, moving sadly, very slow.

In the end she regarded him, and saying goodbye

in the way birds do, she took to flight.

The old man never saw her again,

but rose each day with vague hope he might.

His love was a tiny pebble -

It was sea worn and tired with age,

but he could not possibly live his life

with his heart in a bittersweet cage.