Dying Next To A Whippoorwill Poem by Giordano Pinero

As he lay waiting, Madeline sat to take his hand in hers
contrition caught hold, their eyes, a brief moment
to once strong hands gone feeble and disfigured
' I do not know when or where it is, we'll catch up again, Madeline'
his listless voice hissed out of him like air from a balloon.

' Oh Jesus' he uttered softly, as if he couldn't touch a prelude, fit enough for an angel..'How can I thank you enough for three marvelous children? '

His look of compassion, both clouded and solemn, swelled with morose, for lacking in verbosity to all the things, he will leave unsaid, to which he was grateful for.

' I love you Madeline, I'm so sorry.' his words choked back apologetically, his visage,

echoing a sad countenance that creased the bridge of his wrinkled brow even more.

Though his time was running out of time now.

A soft feathered rain ushered to his window, a whippoorwill, to once again call out the forsaken dreams of the dying, to be carried on through generations to come.


Madeline watched, as his last dying breath fell from him and she took witness to him leaving, from the many things in the room he had once touched. Perhaps the celestial journey we must take, when the body can no longer be cared for.

The sweet mournful rain, a chaste white dove beneath a whippoorwill's call

Madeline leans forward with her palm to quiet the light in her man's eyes

that shout both his condemnation to all things undone

and all a king's castles burning.