only when it sensed itself in flight
as a candle senses flame
did it lose despair

above the brown-green fields
above the disillusionment of time
above the stillness of what was waiting

below in an abandoned orchard
proffering a balance between the tiny eyes

and the old man looking skyward
smelling the rotten apples

tight-lipped as an anvil until the hammer crashes down.

Michael P. M' Manus