When Darkness From The Ashes Rose

The early morning sun hugged me in its warm embrace,
almost too sensual
but an indifferent breeze lightened the caress.
A fluttering snatched my attention.
A compact, black form
swooped on the air currents into my view
auguring a vision in a smoldering pile of entrails.
It twirled, fluttered high above my head,
skimmed sideways,
then swooped down like a paper-plane fighter jet
freed of its destructive urges.
Its feathery lightness entangled me in its presence
so I watched and waited and willed it closer.
A dew-sparkled bit of soil was its landing pad.
Presumption of its possession coerced it into flight.
It did cartwheels,
barrel rolls,
high jumps,

And then it dared to swoop in tantalizingly closer
to me, this arrogant, mesmerized human,
it mocked me.
It fluttered its wigs in tight arcs, dancing a tranquil minuet
only Lilliputian steps away,
touchable, yet unapproachable.
The wings dotted by yellow splotches along its edges
twitched expectantly as if waiting for a net.
A blue amorphous diamond rose from that field of daffodils.
           Sparkling like a miniscule lake
           The sun now encircling it in its arms.
But I could not move, cemented to my patch of earth.

And it warily watched me
while I hungered for it--
We, two earthly-bound creatures enraptured by this moment.

Gray feathers lazily, not feet away,
shifted with the northerly wind
waving fondly at it.
A feral cat had done its work
and abandoned the carcass to the insects,
and the lawn mower that would later mulch it.

The diaphanous wings once again took flight
beckoned by the waving feathers
and the soft wind that greeted it with a light buss on its cheek.

Mouth agape on the verge of crying out,
it chose that resting place
despite my silent entreaty.

And I
turning away toward the light, left it hurriedly
refusing to look back
until it became a speck of ebon black
communing with the darkness.

--Sy Roth