Poems by Elijah Atlas

Musings on flight

I contemplate.

Should I raise my arms,

a bird uplifted by the ecstasy of Spring?

Or should I stretch my legs,

And hop along the rooftops,

a grasshopper forsaking the utility of wings?

Both ways posses their freedom.

I wonder.

To glide along the sky like fish through water?

Or soar an instant in the blue of days?

Both ways have joy...

The ground would wait for me, nevertheless.

A certainty.

Grasshopper arcs are not infinity.

And even birds get tired.

Solitude

I came upon a place of rustling

Autumn gold,

Where the winds lost themselves to dreams

cold and gentle.

The sky clutched the comfort of wool and slumbered,

untouchable, sheltered.

Made quiet by the grey embrace above,

tired, without envy,

The world beneath could not bear cruelty

And had no need for words.

So none were spoken.

Still, I opened the cage of my eyes.

And unfurled the nets of my ears.

I hoped to be a hunter.

But no nightingale sung me its song

In the silence.

So I fashioned my lips into reeds.

And my voice joined the winds

To leave me behind,

Content to be glad, and alone.

An Autumnal Romance

The treetops are blushing

from the familiar caress of Fall’s cool wind.

He is long-lived, well-travelled, weary,

His fingers wise to all the ways of touch.

They will give in to his advances.

Soon, he will strip them down to

naked gnarled branches,

starved fingers grasping nothing

but his breath.