The sky did pale, the wind assail,
The clouds did boil and twist.
A loss of light, a sudden night,
The sun was never missed.
The clouds grew thick, the winds frantic,
The sky a frightful form.
All life had fled; the Earth did dread
The coming of this storm.
I did not heed my highway speed -
The signs did come too late.
While I drove far, I saw no car.
Nor did I know my fate.
My life so bland, no joy at hand,
No love to fill the gap.
To me each day did fade away.
Each night my face did slap.
A flash of white, and thunder's might,
Did hearken tempest foul.
Thus came the rain, like liquid flame.
The maelstrom deep did growl.
The torrents down did fall around,
And they did cause me grief.
The rain so thick, my wipers quick
Did naught to bring relief.
And so I sat, and swore, and spat,
And squinted as I drove.
The rain fell more, my eyelids sore,
My mind's eye thus did rove...
On barren land, tall did I stand.
A breeze did kiss my hair.
My car was gone, the storm moved on,
Returning weather fair.
But fair turned strange as hair did change
To wispy feathers brown,
And skin that then so tan had been
Did turn to velvet down.
I could not pout; my face drew out
And hardened solid bone.
Swift raptor's face, now set in place,
A beak I called my own.
My arms grew long, with tingling strong
As feathers grew from flesh.
I felt in me a feeling free
As man and eagle mesh.
With naught a pause my feet grew claws.
My legs grew thin and scaled.
So avian, no more of men
Was I, now eagle-tailed.
At once I sing, and thus took wing,
And flew into the air.
To where I go I do not know,
Nor do I truly care!
I'm free! I'm free! I'm oh so free!
A tear fell from my eye.
I watched it fall to Earth so small,
A rain drop as I fly.
The sky so blue, my pleasure true.
The wind granting me flight
Through misty crowds of cotton clouds...
And yet all is not right.
My speed was slowed, for on a road
Saw I a frightful thing:
A plume of smoke from titan oak.
Yet closer did I wing.
As I drew near I felt such fear -
The smoke rose from a car,
One that did strike the tree, so like
My own, that seemed so far.
And closer still I drew, until
I spied the driver prone.
But landed there, I could but stare...
His visage was my own.
Twas I that died, and there I cried
For my own ended life.
The cruelest twist? I shant be missed.
Divinely twisted knife.
I felt so lost. My wings did cost
My own humanity.
A bird was I, far could I fly...
Now only did I see!
For only when my sadness then
Took hold my mind's affairs
Did I realize the azure skies
Were answers to my prayers.
In human form did I so mourn
The joys that could not be.
Envied child, free in wild
Innocence and glee.
But now I knew what came in lieu
Of pain and suffering.
I lived, I died, I laughed, I cried.
But now I fly and sing.
And so I wept, then laughed and leapt
To join the clouds again,
To leave behind my human mind,
To loose my where and when.
There comes a time in life sublime
When we must shed our skin,
To live and love and fly above
The wars we cannot win.
Have patience now, and when, somehow,
We shed this mortal coil,
Release shall come, and freedom from
The prison of the soil.
Is magic myth? I fear my kith
And kin do think this way.
But as for I, I live and fly
The magic every day.
