Love's labour lost

Flap flip flap

The bird has flown the nest.

On a bright, sunny day, when the heat decays everything it touches,

The bird has flown its nest after years of breathing, living, growing.

The egg had hatched on a cold night in March…Yes, there used to be cold nights in March not so long ago.

The tiny bird came out, wary of everything and everyone around.

It was happy to be alive and out of a cramped, limiting shell.

It learned to breathe on its own,

But did not know its nature was to fly. It ate what came its way

From the warm embraces on hot, humid afternoons to the loving gazes across the greens.

It fed on the long walks through eternity

On debates from God, to theatre to sex

It did not judge, did not grudge and did not budge.

It lived as it thought it should.

There were some who told it to learn to fly for it would have to fly some day.

It scoffed at their ignorance.

After all, not every bird flies, some

Soar and others

Glide and still others become

One with the breeze that threatens to destroy them

So our little bird was content in what it saw as the essence of its life.

There were fights with its conscience, some with the world,

There were long distances within itself, paces to be covered in so little time.

It learned to make the most of what it was given.

Gradually, the world became more important than its own conscience.

There were voices in its head.

And these voices were different from the voices that had questioned what people had always told it.

About flying, fighting and fearing.

It started learning new meaningless things such as

Fear – of parting and not being able to live after that

Pain – of separation and inability to balance between the voices within and those outside

Guilt – of not being able to fulfil expectations and not being able to accept limitations

Doubt – about itself and its abilities and its potential

Envy – of everything around that seemed happy as it thought it could never be

These feelings became a burden. Yet the long summer nights and the short winter days,

The hours spent away from the world discovering itself,

The effort put in to adjust, accommodate and understand kept it from falling apart.

But in secret, the bird taught itself to fly.

So that when the Moment came, its skills would not be found wanting.

And in secret, it kept waiting for the Moment.

It kept looking for the Moment,

Lived anticipating it

Preparing for it

So much so that when the Moment finally came, it did not realise when it flapped its wings and flew, glided and soared.

But from that distance, when the delirium of the wings it had taken died, it looked down on what was left behind.

In a split second, that cold night of March came back into view.

Along with it came the years it had spent dreaming, daring and Living in defiance of the Voices Outside.

It saw what it had once owned and had now lost.

It saw the essence of its being, and how far behind it had left its soul.

And in that split second, the Earth and the Heavens did not stay still.

The Earth kept spinning around the Sun and the Heavens kept rumbling

The bird forgot to flap its wings.

The memory of its past life caught up with its future and brought its present to the ground.

And in that moment, the bird lived and died its destiny.

Something that began in March 2003 and has ended so many times, only to rise like the Phoenix...but this time, the ashes have become cold