Thoughts of LoWriter

afterlife

The Old Ones say that herons are the spirits
of those condemned for the sins of their previous lives,
confined to learn in an inferior form
until they can be reborn as humans.

But in this life, I have been human,
crouching in pools of evening,
denied of every delight,
bound to the mud by my toes,
trying to bathe the humanity from my lifelines
with raindrops of regret and longing—
with sky sorrow echoed by my own salty tears.
I have stretched out in my pain:
Reaching to melt back into the sky,
knowing I have only stretched out my arms
to let breezes stream through my fingers like water.
In this life, my body has been crying to be lengthy and graceful,
aching for the weightless power of wings through wind,
remembering in a tattered scrap of myself
the strength of heron feathers,
the depth of heron eyes.

I have been a blue heron
Scissor-slicing precisely through tissue paper skies—
An elemental daughter, zephyr dancing between the stars:
A wise and psychic guardian of incarnation—
wanting no Heaven or Hell,
soaring on my wings in the night.

If that was my penance,
May I pay for my sins for the rest of my lives.