i.  

At the edge of a branch,    

a bird leaps,    

reaching for the one across.    

The empty sky holds its weight,    

its wide wings pulling the heavens close.    

Since its first embrace of the abyss,    

the bird has never folded its wings.    

ii.  

When the mountain stretches open    

the wings it has kept folded,    

snow begins to fall.    

The sky hums with the beating of wings—    

snowflakes, relentless,   

each stroke a fight to stay aloft,    

each flurry a fleeting birth    

from the shadows above.    

iii.    

A sparrow swept in by the storm    

rests for a moment by the fire,    

its small body soaking in the light, the warmth,    

before vanishing back into the cold.    

Life feels like that—    

a bird’s fragile wings    

beating against the dark.    

Rise, language of the earth!    

Strike against the wind,    

shape a sky of your own.    

Where you’re going, I don’t know.    

But I watch your honest ascent.    

Flight is not a path;    

it is the purpose.    

Wings are rebellion—    

a quiet defiance of gravity.    

iv.  

What soars in the endless sky    

is not a bird.    

It’s a human dream,    

draped in the shape of wings.    

Wings are flesh, yes,    

but they belong to the infinite.    

The fairy hangs her invisible robes    

on tree branches,    

while the bare angel, wings trailing,    

moves between heaven & earth.    

v.  

Wings are born in cages.    

Oh, lone bird cutting through the wind—    

in this age where a tear says it all,    

tell me,    

is your wing    

still whole?