Astonished

It is astonishing
That in the cold numbness
Of your feelings
A passing bird

A bird in flight
Across your focus
Could change
The hues of your sunrise

It is astonishing
How your gravity shifts
Because you see a delicate creature
Unbound by the weight of the earth

Fluttering across your vision
Changing all of your dreams
What dreams have come before
What dreams will come after

In the turbulence of pale white wings
You'll never be the same as before
You think that the armor is thick enough
You think that experience

Has built enough cynicism
You think and think and then find that
Your eyes cannot look away
From the one fluttering feather

Passing through the air in the trail
Of the passing dove
In that moment
You find in astonishment

That your world
Your world has forever changed

1 April 2008

Ember

He stares out into the afternoon light
Thinking of her image
With eyes closed mouth parted

And forehead against the cold steel wall
Hands delicate as primary feathers of a swan
With grace in her neck to match

He stared into the image in his mind
And let lose his eyes
To the thoughts of her being

Trying to feel ephemerally
Her mercurial mood
Trying to close the distance

An expanse of continent and ocean
Trying to reach the source of the little fire
That burns beneath his ribs

Like an ember that sleeps for years
Before evolving into a forest fire

30 March 2008