I was awake but the streets were dreaming
People walked softly not to stir them.
Theatre fog, atmospherics,
Looming lights from the shadows,
Trees silhouetted at such angles,
Muffled omnipresent mist,
Stuffed with cold, unfocussed, woollen.
Yet from within, a clear spring,
A plexus of bubbling pleasure, a gurgle
Gushed, grew, danced, sang.
“In first place, with ‘First Flight’ is…”
First place…
Flight…
It was always windy on the ledge.
I had learned an old woollen and a warm drink
With the glasses and the other equipment,
Danger here,
Outstretched arms, gusts, seafall,
Sitting is safer.
Sticks, streaked stone lip
Nervous, preening, pacing
Pristine wings feathered the wind
Stretched, stood on the edge of oblivion,
Watched free spirits swoop, call, wheel.
But stepped back.
Fear elaborated
A stick’s degrees corrected
A tail feather flicked
“Not today then.”
Then, as I hadn’t expected to see,
The young bird was decided
Before thought, it jumped, I stopped
Breath, gut, pit, fell,
As it fell.
Panic,
Foxes at the bottom of the cliff,
Heart pounding.
The wind took it.
It was away.
An ecstasy of terror
And it was away with the others
Diving and screeching its triumph.
First place…
Flight…
Curious to owe so much to a bird’s courage.
They will all be at the house,
Unaware of their debt.
I will take the way through the park
Sit awhile on the green bench
Listen to the slow talk of the silent trees.
I remember later, there were regrets.
The bird flown, that had been companion
Since its limp escape
And matted flopping from its shell,
Those precarious weeks,
The simplicity of the cliff, the sea, the sky
And the questions of existence.
Now the wind is caught under my wings.
The world is so wide.
The sea with such blues.
