Twinkle-Eyed Night Birds | Teen Ink

Twinkle-Eyed Night Birds

November 27, 2010
By AudreyM PLATINUM, Delaware, Ohio
AudreyM PLATINUM, Delaware, Ohio
41 articles 1 photo 3 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I exist as I am, that is enough." -Whitman


It is the sky,
Deep and enveloped in itself,
That bends swiftly to kiss the tilting earth,
Two bodies that work alone,
Work together.

Without earth, no one to admire sky,
And without sky, no one for earth.
A mirror made for two halves of a whole.

And like the broad-winged birds, blackened silk feathers ruffled,
In flight,
Is the night sky, chilled and shivering,
It's own silken feathers puffed up by breezes,
The kisses from the earth.

And this bird-like shadow,
Wings engulfing lands and seas, swathed in
Black velvet, cool and deep.

Stars are the eyes of the broken down birds, as they whir
All across the heavenly dome,
Gleaming with the trickery of nighttime.

Earth - lands and seas - lies flat.
Blows zephyrs, upwards, moves the stars,
Gives the wings the currents to loft upon.

So dizzyingly high, from the ground are the night-winged,
Star-eyed little birds,
All part of one master bird,
Who swoops and bends and glides,
Catches mouthfuls of currents.

And I, here,
The observer,
I see all the birds move en masse,
Across sky and domed heaven.
And their twinkle-eyes and dark, deep wings
Threaten to swallow all,

As they make up this writhing ceiling that caps the earth off from what lies beyond.
These mysterious night birds,
With beaks and faces unseen,
Just beating wings,
One and all of them, together.
And eyes that jest and glint
As they capture light from somewhere far.

All halves of wholes
And parts of many.
As they dance and sway and move,
And the earth's cold breaths push them left, right,
Make all the birds erupt into cackles,
As they fly far beyond,

Before being engulfed in the sunrise.



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