Luray Gross: The Boy and the Mockingbird

you called me, son . . . like a boy sharing his name
with a mockingbird — Robert Laidler


Once in a time not so
long ago, there was a boy
generous enough to share
his name
with a mockingbird and
a mockingbird willing, perhaps
even eager,
to carry that boy’s name,
his awkward word-bound name
within its song.
We do not know
if the bird was she or he
or they, all mockingbirds looking
the same to us.

No matter. The mockingbird sang
from chimney tops at midnight,
from thicket branches at noon.
It sang and sang until
the boy’s name became
both pianissimo and forte

while the boy forgot
the mockingbird, having
shared his name so casually,
like a crust of bread left over
from a feast or the last sip of milk
in the glass his mother had poured.

But that was not the end,
for this is a story
and you know, as do I, as did the boy,
as did the bird,
that there has to be
a raging stream to cross
or a demon to quell.

Years passed and the boy,
who had forgotten the bird,
became a man who lost
his name in the maze of daily living.

Perhaps it slipped into the compost,
or fell from his mind
into a shoe he never wore,
one designed for frivolity, or
one crafted for joy.

At first he did not miss it,
but one night, or perhaps one
afternoon, he felt the empty place
where his name used to dwell.
A blank, a dry moat, a long pause
between the I will’s and the I must’s.

The space was not really empty
for it resounded with the man’s need,
a need he finally felt like the burn
that seeps deeper into a hand
held too close to the warming flame
for too long.

Where is my name? he thought,
and finally said the words aloud,
to himself, in the troubled room
of his life.

But this is not the end either,
for this is a story, and now the teller
gives the man a quest, sets him on his
imaginary steed, to ride into the dark wood,
to emerge into the sunlight and
urge that horse forward
toward the river that gleams
in the distance

where the mockingbird
still sings, high on a branch,
forsaking every song,
but the name shared so long ago.

Here, here, here it is
the mockingbird sings,
Your name, your birthright,
your future. I give it back
into your keeping.

~~~~

Copyright 2025 Luray Gross

Luray Gross is a poet, storyteller and teacher. Her love of poems, stories and music was nurtured by parents who stole time from their work on their Bucks County farm to read, sing, and play the violin and piano. Luray’s poetry collections include With This Body (Ragged Sky, 2023).