Strange Bird

A dry hot wind was blowing.
Blowing away the dark and the wet.
Blowing the sadness from the land,
Calling away distinctions,
Smoothing separations,
With magic, making all
Golden and yellow.

Trees and hills,
The rivers, the people,
Even the dogs are made golden.
Just hints of shape,
A suggestion of existence,
Amidst a world of sunlight.

And I,
With a body of light amber,
Fair limbs,
Shone through with light,
Rise graceful into the air,
Into the golden sky.
My subtle arms and hands
Stroke the air,
As do the wings of a bird.
And high, higher, I fly,
Until the whole great tableau
Of the land
Stretches beneath me.

Ah, the awful beauty of it.
Beauty I drown in
And am lost.
For I am become,
The earth and the trees and the corn.
But suddenly I am brought down.
As if the beauty that I am
Is some strange bird
To be shot.

I am pierced in wing and chest,
And fall broken.
Fall slowly,
Like a curled golden leaf,
At the feet of my hunter;
A hunter in conflict fierce
At what he has destroyed.

The beauty lies
Helpless before him.
Shall he, out of his strife,
Finish what he began?
If only the beauty would hurt him,
Then another bullet
Could be spent on it.

Only the eyes,
Send out their call for help,
Until the silent cry
Is answered by a woman and a man.
They look upon the beauty
And tender its wounds.
Then one to another says,
“This is a thing of loveliness.”
And man to the woman says,
“Yes, but too fragile for this world.”

Copyright ©2001 Tony Crisp