Phoenix Rising

Wind and silence.
Sheer granite walls.
Atop the highest peak,
The spicy smoldering pyre, spent.
Against the empty sky
A lonely figure, clear new eyes,
Not cowed by man or god.

Now arms raise slowly, curving out,
Encircling flames of burnished wings,
Slim hands clench smoothly,
Head thrown back,
As trembling in its ecstasy
As any newborn butterfly
In tensed expectancy of life.

Then wings plunge
And she thrusts toward sun’s startled eye.
No doubt, no backward glance,
But rides a rainbow’s arc
Until she burns a hole in space
And leaves a trail of radiance,
The quiet glitter of a soul in flight.

All this I saw, the burning crest,
Wings breaking into fire
As she leapt through empty sky,
Then drew to a shimmering dot
And finally disappeared.
I shall not again see such a rising:
once suffices for a life,

And though it come but once
In half a thousand years,
Still…worth the wait.