Phoenix

The cut on my arm reminds me
that after the phoenix has flown
some will gather around the hearth 
to stir the ashes
with dirty sticks.

What do they expect
will come of that?  And what
did I expect from the blood
I drew from myself
when I heard he was gone?

Did I think that if I drew enough,
the phoenix would rise again
from where my blood had pooled?
I’m old enough to know better.
Sometimes, though,

I get young again
and fall in love
with childhood magic: believing
that if I give enough, hurt enough,
the phoenix will return.

Since I am old enough
to know the worst, though,
I do bind the wound
and begin to listen
to the wind —

for when the bird flew,
he sang, and the song
remains with me,
and in it
is the fire that released it.

A myth 
is a myth
not because it’s a lie,
but because
it is a truth

that cannot ever die for long.
It rises again and again.
It flies blazing up from the ash.
It is never in the ash.
It is in the clean, bloodless sky.

— for David Blair