Phylogenesis

- it can even seem intentional:

one's hair turns grey, and thin,
to match the texture
of loosened skin -

a heart's fullness is compressed;

our lives distilled
might take less space -
like gems, may give more light.

one day we hear that a poet waits 
on the Pacific coast to die;
beyond the eastern ocean
now a new girl-child lives -

friends will speak of angels and arms,

the embracing deity
of their faiths. All tapped out
electronically - it's social media -

and the only way I know

is to be, and to reflect,
in mine and another's place
in time becoming space

©2014 Ravenna Taylor

 

They Return As Birds

Illusions die every day.

The glorious ones and the inglorious meet the same end.

Some of us cherish our illusions even after they have expired.
We breathe life into them daily.

Some of us cast their ashes over the sea, and
they return as birds, to roost in our bones.

Some bones won't still to provide rest for the flighty illusions.

Some heads are emptied of illusions, and stay empty
as sky above a valley, where a lagoon will form.

The silt carried in from upstream will settle; the sea that bears
illusions' ashes will wash them back into the lagoon;
rivers and streams will push them back out, into the broad-hipped sea.