A Barbaric Yawp

A Warring Reward

A bittersweet beat shakes the cage

And every ounce of meat arranged

In delicate patterns I could ne’er reweave

But attempt to, in inky song, conceive.

The end: a blend of thanks and grief

In briar-bound notes of sweet relief.

The din of praise is a question raised,

One dressed in doubt that famished preys

On bone and hold through dappled days.

But a beauty begins.

It stays.

It grows.

It starts as poetry disguised as prose

And builds a palace of each query posed,

Only reached on tips of toes.

Looking over the crimson gate,

Behold the fickle fount of fate

From which I supped one summer night

And changed my standing-still to flight.

But even in the skies, so free,

The cage contains insurgency.

Doubt and courage: two warring gents,

Whose clash is dashed by this truthful sense:

Even bittersweet beats are recompense.