Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, and She Looks Like a Creature Who's Been Through It

Hope is the thing with feathers, and she
looks like a creature
standing thigh-deep in a pile of her own ash and soot,
with watery eyes and she’s choking a little
on the tendrils of smoke still curling up from the black, charred evidence
of the past nine months —
compiled at her sore and clawed, tired and somewhat
unevenly sized feet.

But as she breathes out carefully,
and the patience and silence and spaciousness
awaken her parasympathetic nervous system response, and she
gradually recovers kinesthetic awareness —
she realizes her shoulders are already poised wide
for takeoff, and have been
for some time now.
And her solar source beams at her wildly, in
encouragement and in the heat of this extendedly
anticipated moment.

All of this before she even
consciously
remembers that she is a Phoenix
by choice and by inheritance, and that she was fucking made for this
and so now it’s
time.

She takes flight fully understanding
that one day she will burst into flames and start from the egg again,
and she hopes for fair warning but knows it may not be, so
for now,
she vows to enjoy the wind and the sky
and the renowned feeling of unabated freedom all the books talk about,
with a sense of timelessness and presence and peace
that only knowing it’s all temporary
can truly bring.

Originally published on Substack.