Poem: These Feathers

By Richard Chirombo

These feathers: Plucked from your chest of steel
Covered and well-protected from the peril,
The morning dew and the mid-day sun, too,
Will once- at the bright hour of your leisury flight,
Above the chair of such mighty pride- perhaps twice,
Expire.

Haywire!
Please, carry me higher than the barbed wire
The winds above, by seventy rain-beats I know, will surely calm my fire.
It is the weather of my temper, I bet, carrying me this fury-higher;
Can it be the musings, the tenderness of my wife Flora,
That is taking me this lower?

I know, I know my son:
The higher you fly,
The remotest the chances you will be heard when the feathers suddenly dry,
Zero the chances you will be heard when you in flight cry,
None the chances you will see us when the feathers drop down up high.