As I was flying high and looking down
the lonely regent of my tiny crown
in one-dimension’s cold and breath-thin air
anxiously intent on prey down there
I’d had enough of limit’s lonely plains
the flat dimensions where my kingdom reigns
the mumbled tastes and smells I’d feel and ‘see’
within the fat of corporeality
and fed up with an empty stomach’s need
of staying calm and poised in hunger/greed
of scouring earth and heaven for a feed
and of the pumping species’ lust to breed
and being just the slight of something more
the flight of fancy or the metaphor
of some small god or spirit I might be
enbarbed into this bird-brained vanity
I craved a warmth and blood but not to eat
I longed for solid earth and solid feet
the camaraderie of group and herd
not the cramps of solitary bird
for squeezed within this single animal
I felt my spirit growth was minimal
two forward eyes formed cross wires for one shot
with single-minded thoughts towards that shot
no sense of ‘love’ towards my hunter kind
just single thoughts within a single mind
no sense of multiple or larger heart
just the calculating killer’s art
I held vestigial memories of ‘loves’
but felt harsh hawk affinities to doves
I had ideas and knew compassion’s frame
like empty victim bones without a name
my fuller heart’s desire for kindred flesh
where individuality can mesh
with individuality and more
was not a place I sensed my wings could soar
the levels I could climb felt limited
and many planes are only passed when dead
and dead again one finds another plane
and cleans the mind but still there’s matter’s stain
in ways predestined helpers have contrived
I’m made aware of lives I have survived
I know there’s more to me than just one time
that even birds can conscience the sublime
and while the air around me frictions heat
my wings get heavier and cease to beat
I feel a future where my wings are feet
and I jostle with thick-bodied meat
I feel the whole of me come down to earth
a loss a fall – I wouldn’t call it birth
a drop through branches that I cannot stop
the holding sense of present does not stop
my feathers shrink to single spines of hair
now clumps of ear start sprouting where none were
what remains of talons grab on grass
and swelling sinew atoms start to pass
through moon-spaced eyes to sea-ing skins of deer
four-hoofed and heavy weighted hard to steer
a double helix seed in me unchains
I’m galloping while tissue type constrains
fixed in muscle-stretching entropy
pumping veins so big so odd so free
bumping into others without slipping
we flood the plain our hooves are hardly gripping
ignoring fear retreating is no use
wild and deer with freedom rushing loose
I stumble huddle gushing flushing flinging
a streaming herd of steaming heart-beats winging
Damian Robin lives in England. He works for an international newspaper and a bilingual magazine. He lives with his wife and three children.
Feature Image: “Bewicks Swans” by Martin Ridley
I love the rhyming couplets and the singing flow of the stanzas. Beautiful metamorphosis!
Very impressive rhyme and meter in a descriptive piece
of merit. Only needs the odd amendment to elevate it
to ‘exceptional’. “Bird brain ” I would lose/change if possible? Excellent. Well done!
A truly thoughtful and thought provoking piece, it is beneficial to contemplate.