Uchenna, Writer, Engineering Student

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Poem Prompts: Halcyon

The vibrant colors shift
from every part of the rainbow
to golds and pinks.
The yearly sun slowly sinks,
giving in to the aches of time seeping in.
The radiant light gives out
and starts to gradually thin.
Animals slow down,
plants shrivel up,
humans layer up.
The lack of life sucks up the last of the color.
The golds and pinks fade away
on the passing autumn winds,
leaving us with shivering blues and whites.
Nothing is left,
nothing left to calm the sky.
It gets rougher;
howling and beating against tree barks.
It sends snowflakes down in whirring winds,
destroying the earth with beauty.
In the midst of all of this,
only the halcyon is brave enough.
Through it all, the small bird holds steadfast.
Its fragile blue body and reddened face
continue to fly through these winds
and past the woods.
It hovers over the ocean blue,
already frozen over by the night the halcyon arrives.
There, you could find dozens of halcyons ready to mate.
At midnight of the winter solstice, they pair off.
And each pair will create their own nests
and lay their own batch of eggs.
These pairs' love for one another
is enough to calm the winds
and thaw the sea.
The laying of the eggs is enough motivation
for the sun to stay up a little bit longer,
just to watch over the future hatchlings.
Even the air protects them--
it lifts their nests into the sky,
shielding them from the thawing ocean and predators.
And when a halcyon does hatch,
the love it was created with energizes the earth once more.
Mother Earth harmonizes with it and its siblings
and this is enough to bring about Spring once more.


Halcyon - a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm
Be Yourself. Always.

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