BIRTH OF A BABY BLUE BIRD

Safe inside your cedar ark, you break your thin blue shell.

Of grass and sky and clouds that fly,

Of these you cannot tell.

With wings that weep and beak so weak, your days in darkness grow.

To eat and sleep, to softly cheep,

Is all that you can know.

What called you to your portal hole on shaky legs to stand.

The light beyond, the church bell's song,

To look, your God demands. 

As through a seaman's glass you peer.

A single eye stares terrified,

Your body clutched with fear.

At beauty so alluring, it covers you with dread.

For this paradise you must sacrifice,

The comfort of your bed.

But ancient longing grips your heart.

A memory old, a speck of gold,

That prompts your wings to start.

And push you out from excel, at first to flap then fly.

Your second birth upon this earth,

Your baptism in the sky.

Bathed in beauty now you see,

Spirit and feather tethered forever.

The bounty of your destiny.

The Life Of A Leaf

From what place in the forest did your tender bud bloom,

The birch, the ash, the maple tree's womb?

From what slender branch did your mother give birth?

From what height did you emerge a new son of the earth?

Your soft green skin unfurled to the wind,

To capture the sun which way did you bend?

What shadows did you cast to cool and to shelter,

To comfort weary travelers from summer's great swelter?

What storms did you weather that burned, bit, or blew?

That taught you to love from a new point of view.

What note did you play in the great forest symphony?

When the Maestro of Autumn set your heart trembling,

and you took to the sky, like the birds you'd been wooing,

and embracing the air to dance your undoing.

Did anyone see your moment of glory? Or know that your heart was so brave?

When you landed on a soft bed, a rock, or a watery grave?

Does it matter? Does it matter?

Must we endlessly reason and flatter?

Isn't it enough? Isn't it enough?

Just to have lived?

by K. A. Shows