Flights In the Gyre of Being
The chick killed its brother;
the weak have to be expelled
from the nest,
It had to be the last and the first,
the one still instinctively pecking,
still begging from the raw red mouth
to endure long enough to soar.
She feeds it the meat of its sibling,
She has no sorrow for death
yet she must blind her eyes
to do this thing.
It gulps, grows stronger.
The consumed brother helping
to shed downy floss,
to nourish new sleek feathers.
Morsels are brought, foreign tastes,
until a small bird is put into a gaping beak.
It is not an eaglet,
the bird was born weak and yet survived
until now.
Upon a time it is chased from the eyrie,
left alone on wilderness winds
where only wings
that have thrived upon their kin
may become mothers.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2021
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