In Time Like Air by May Sarton

Author:May Sarton [Sarton, May]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-7433-8
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-02-25T17:43:00+00:00

THE PHOENIX

It is time the big bird with the angry neck

We have cajoled and cursed

Went home to die, or whatever he must do

When his heart would burst.

For his wild desire pulses over our heads

And opens the secret night,

Passage of wings that madden without release

When the phoenix is in flight.

Let him go, stretching his long legs, clumsy

On this harsh ground. Let him flee

To the soft black marshes he remembers

Or the gentle mother tree.

Let him go. He has shaken the house at night;

His wings have clouded our dream,

And there is no peace for his lost cry at daybreak

And at night his terrible scream.

He flames through the morning yet he never sings;

He only makes that strange lost cry.

He is angry all the time. Let him find his tree

And make his nest and die.

Though he is God’s own angel in disguise,

We cannot bear another angry word,

Nor look into those cold and jewelled eyes,

O pitiless strange bird!

Will he come back, will he come back all shining

From his dark death to bring

The true message, the gentle, that all his torment

Was desperate to sing?

Or—what if it were not he at all, not he

Who must consume himself to be reborn,

But we ourselves who drove an angel from us

Because our hearts were torn?

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