Flight

Let me sing the song of flight—

A tale of weightless birth,

The murmuring of the legend of love

Passed down through the ages

By those who believed.

Wings waxed with wishes and hopes

To soar into sunny nearness,

Realizing at long last things once dreamt;

A nearness whose warmth melts all,

Shedding illusions like autumn leaves

After a season blessed,

Before winter’s ice claims its own embrace,

By which seeing,

Freshly stripped of its comforting veil,

Spies the empty branches of longing reach—

Arms that had once seemed so full

When arrayed with dancing leaves,

Sap still pulsing through their courses,

Cradling the nest of future promise

And the egg that would never hatch.

It is on feathered wings that love lights,

And with talons that it returns to roost

—Darren B. Hiebert

November 2005

©2005 Darren B. Hiebert