Phoenix (for Blair)

Originally posted 7/24/2011.  

The cut on my arm reminds me
that after the phoenix has flown some
always gather around its birth-hearth
to stir the ashes with dirty sticks.
What do they expect will come of that — 

is it the same thing
I expected
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 don’t know.
I’m old enough to know better

but for a second there I became young again
and fell in love with childhood magic,
believing that if I gave enough
and hurt enough,
the phoenix would return.

I am old enough
to know better
so I bind the wound
and listen as I do
for the song.

The myth says when the bird flies
he sings, and the song
burns the air behind him
with the fire 
that released him.

A myth becomes 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