Freedom bequeathed from antiquity
lifts him on a salty current
a Pleistocene phoenix
like a minor revelation rising
from the cordgrass, rising
through oleander.
His mud-and-salt-pan plumes
are vibrant in their motion
against sepia stillness;
red-rimmed eyes scan his course
consider the offerings.
But his needs
cannot be met here: Asphalt, steel
rubber, glass and brick –
foreign parts
of a border world outside his own.
Expert air-surfer, on one
finger he turns
traces the invisible crest, dips
into a lower trough
glides the draft
streaming above opaque rivers
that thread the dusty marshes
of his home.
Published in Reach of Song, 2017
Catherine Favole Gruber 