Sunshine sauntered across the sky,
kissing the leaves,
eagerly lined up along the road
in anticipation of her lips.
Blushing green,
myself among them.

When I saw it.

Just wings folded back
like unopened love letters.
Feathers
reflecting the light
like a pile of hairs huddled on the floor
of the barber shop.
Legs splayed.

Maybe he’d been setting off
to find his Canaan of milk and honey,
his Asia of silk and spices,
his America of opportunities.

Or maybe she’d been a’flyin’
to that nest of twigs and bark,
little girls’ bright pink hair ribbons and
plastic party streamers,
where her three little chicks are waiting still.

When that unprecedented gust of wind,
that gory rush of rain,
uncontrollable peals of laughter,
iridescent ichor of pain …

My uncle once told me
We all go from one place to another.

No matter if
you’re a billionaire or a beggar
a tycoon or a typhoon
an elephant or an eggplant
a human or a raven.

Some of us just reach the destination faster,
Some of us easier.
Some of us wish we weren’t on this road,
Some wish the road wasn’t so rocky,
Some wish the road wasn’t so long.
Some of us get there by climbing and
clinging with our cut and callused fingers,
Some are carried on others’ backs,
or more often,
the Feet of Fate.

I wanted to ask the raven,
neither buried in wood nor Earth
nor cradled in flames.

Not to be written eulogies,
not to be stay alive in thoughts and prayers,
not to be laid among flowers nor tears
of gold and silver and every other color …

But I turned my cheek away,
from that he or she,
cold meat, rotten over, on the rain-patched pavement
and offered it, instead, to the smiling sun.