I have huge black wings on either side —
Two huge fields like the expanse of darkness
With flecks like stars, sparkling with finesse.
So big like elephant's ears, that my eyes can't look beyond,
Huge like the giant Ashoka tree hovering around my house;
Fluttering gently like a fairy's wings, physics deceiving,
Magical, extraordinary, wishful, black, sparkling, deceiving.
I had always wanted them, to fly over the rocks and the seas,
To fondle the cloudy skies and race with the butterflies,
Until he came and twisted his hand and turned his wand —
Some itch and some prick - "lo, my friend, with wings I seal this bond,
Yours be the sky, ho - yours be the stars
And yours be the dark kingdom beyond them stars."
And I left the land under that twinkling, glittering swoon,
Swaying into my new kingdom with its stars and the Moon.
Oh! but when down I looked, gold was the land,
Gold was the water, gold was the wild,
Barren was the air and it smelled of death,
Shrewd was the stars' light and stale was Moon's breath.
"You have lost the land now, my friend,
You wanted your flight,
You have wings and the incredible holyness of being,
The kingdom of Moon and stars, and all you are seeing.
Hang there my friend, oh, just look at your riches,
Look at your vast wings and be the way of kings,
Look at your black wings, o, you the king of flight,
The king of smelly airs and the king of blight."
My wings then came upon me and I saw again the Moon
And the rusty walls that circled me in the shadow of black,
No line then existed between flying and falling
For then I saw it was not the sky but down a hole I was falling.
The Moon became the sunlit sky and smaller it grew
And never did I look down for fears within did brew.
It has been going on since and down the black I have been falling
But no, I tell myself — black are my wings and I have but been flying.
👌👌
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