Birds

To those who flap their wings every morning, preferring the doom of the wing over a docile eye — Wael

Banished to the skies are the birds
Banished …
    Not to land on the ground
    Not but to be flung by the tiny winds

They could descend
    To rest for moments
    On the palms, the lawn, the statues
    The columns
    Edges of oriel facades
    Or the concrete surfaces

Becalm, 
For thy heart to catch a sigh 
And thine tender lips to whistle a tweet
And pick thy sustenance

Startled, quickly ye feel,
    Of the swing of a foot,
    The dart of a youngster,
    The shadows, tilting across the walls,
    And the stones of loudness!

Dangling from the skies are the birds
Trapped, in a web of a spider, for the winds
Hunt, by the blazing arrows of the sun

Flap thy wings
For ye got no way
(while the perpetrators and the victims are awake)
Ye got no way, but to flee
    An escape, reborn with every dawn

And the birds that mingled with people,
    growing flightless
Ceres, smelling the comfort of life,
    growing with vain
And eyne, seeing the ease of life,
    growing docile
Conceded to quarrel over food scraps
What else is left?!
    But the slaughtering knife
    But waiting for the end

The hand bestowing the grains, 
    knows how to sharpen the sword

Birds, real birds,
The dirt buries their ashes
When they inevitably fall

And the flightless birds, 
    Have folded their wings, and surrendered
Have they known,
    the life of the wing is short?

The wing is life
And the wing is doom
The wing is survival
And the wing is vain

Wael AbdAlmageed

Pittsburgh, November 3, 2021