late in the day, consider this

 

late in the day,

consider this:

 

perhaps the osprey, falling

up from its coffer of odd

jigsaw seeming branches

is a possible thought coming to

 

shape: the breathing

of a phoenix, those old

souls that go down into their own

heat and flame and disappear

 

there for a while, gone the way

camouflage is gone to the one

who is viewing far,

trying to reconcile the fire

 

aerated to ash with

the rising up from it all almost

entirely intact, brand new,

and sifting from its breast,

 

indeed every feather’s vane

and barb, the minute bones of all

those ancient lives, and wedding them

with the paradox of its only just

 

now, this moment, beginning.