Biding Time
(Poem beginning with a line by Tom Waits)
Tom Waits
A thousand pigeons fall around her feet.
She feeds them with some scraps of Christmas cake
she never finished when he walked away
and left her staring at her wedding ring.
It could be mid-July; it may be hot.
But there's a coldness. Do the pigeons sense,
behind her smile, a sorrow that endures?
Do they provide a canopy of care?
It's time: a time to feed the birds, a time
to stay, a time to walk away, a time
to kneel down in a public square, a time
to laugh, a time to wipe the eye, a time
to regret, a time to forget, a time
to hold time in abeyance. Now. It's time.
Conor Kelly
