2014-2015, Poem

Phoenix

Featured in the 2014 Fall Issue of Rambunctious

Phoenix
Colin Howe, '16

The ashen ground still liberated puffs
Of black smoke, wisping, towards an empty heaven
Their essence filled the air like coils of a snake
Slowly wrapping around its prey, gently pulling
Away the light from its eyes

Charred relics of a forest stood upon the rolling hills
They glowed with an exhausted intensity
Like macabre Christmas trees, complete with
Speckles of white as the sky fell softly
Drowning the ground in its loving embrace

It was perfectly silent
For there was nothing left to be disturbed
Lonely licks of flame occasionally cracked
sending echoes over the nothingness
They went around the world
and came back home

A solitary bird soared above the madness
What had once been cotton balls,
was now a seething mass of smoldering coal
Bubbling with the despair of souls
Burning with the sorrows of life 

The bird was scared and alone
For it was drunk off of the terror below
Its wings pitiful bellows to the fires 
For he had watched the world burn
And he didn’t half mind

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