When Wings Fail

Why did the bird try?
Knowing that salaries,
Summaries and lies-
Have always tricked the unwise.
Peaking over the nest,
Beyond the crest and past his beak.
Forgetting that his wings too weak,
his parents gone, he’s-
Lost advice and familiar faces.
Now murky as polluted rivers,
Memories melt much like-
the snow from passing winters.

As the bird sings to flight.
It cheers, and flaps
And flies, until the crunch;
Of its bones and membranes.
Now the pain channels through,
Like bursting pipes beneath the roads.
Collapsed, exposed,
Kicking the goads.
The ground is low.
He looks around; alarmed!
Hearing the sound of his racing heart,
Thump, thump, boom and boom,
His nerves jostled apart-
From the fright of future doom.

Running and racing,
Round and round.
Up the tree, to no avail.
Despite how fast,
his thin legs pace-
they cannot take him home.
Way up there, in the tree,
Above the branches-
The only path is-
Vertically.
Breathing hard, shaking, alone-
Freezing, tired; so many unknowns.

The little bird finally remembers;
On his right and to his left,
Rest appendages of potential.
To reach the destination,
that he seeks-
They are crucial and essential.
Flapping away once again,
he forces the air beneath him.
Without a care, but much to lose.
Up, up, up he goes, almost there-
Until the sting stops his wing from working.
Warnings of woe he crashes below; circling.
His beady eyes detect demise; observing-
So many watchful creatures lurking.