Lift up your wings to breathe!
Push down, fly forwards, and exhale!
Fleet floating flight of avian form
Your life untethered
Un-held by land, or lane,
But linked through cycled time
And gently overlaid
With bonds of nesting place
Your home is ethereal abundance
Free folding, fading flow
Of life that sweeps and soars
To heights by most unknown
Attuned to flight and feathered altitude
A sisterhood of flocking form
Funnelling, flowing fast
As free as fresh air blown
For this escape
For freedom’s shape
We turn to you
Hope’s herald!
Time’s storied heroine!
When trapped in dearth
We trudge our leaden woe
Infilled, oppressed
Hemmed in by city, brick and stone
Entombed in clay-baked canyons
Created by our own device
Skywards, with craning neck,
In long-lost lives we yearn
Across time’s void for you
Until . . .
With wing full-beat, swift turn
Your swooping form arrives
And courage gives us hope
As through your flight
You show us how to live!
