Kate Maxwell 

 Fall of the Ratites 

How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!  
Isaiah 14:12-13 

 
Lost my strong pectoral muscles  
generations past 
soaring through mountain mists 
heaven in my heart 
breath of blue, all but a tingle 
in the flap and flutter 
of these heavy useless wings 
and upward yearnings. 
 
Of stones and dirt, not wind and clouds 
these broad fat feet will claw  
and search, eyes down  
roosting into gravity  
with stoic resignation 
obligated surety  
that we remain sustained 
since earthbound and enlarged. 
 
Weighed down with the heft of durability 
thick bodied, tough skinned  
and breastbone now too flat  
to use as keel: I pause  
in my pedestrian foraging 
scan unending skies  
to watch those of us still  
able-winged and hollow-boned 
 
hover and sail as they touch  
edges of forever with their feathered  
tips and lighter souls.  
Down here in the dirt 
squinting into sun and splendour 
their aerial abandon 
still whispers to my armless torso 
once, you also soared.