One
by one,
the feathers fall
onto mud,
onto Earth,
until nothing remains
but the ghosts
of the wings
they were forced
to abandon.
These flightless birds—
they were regal once,
high-flying,
and exuberant,
chests red
and beaming and proud,
now they’re all so
meek and
gray—sky-before-rain gray—
all left choking on chalk dust.
They can only dream of
the stars
and envy the flight and the flicker
and the flame,
their bodies, bare and pale,
wince from the heat
as if moths
are braver than them.
The wind
is stifled by a
contemporary lullaby,
and now too quiet,
too far gone
to carry
the ones full of empty
promises.
Sometimes
I hear the songs turn
into a requiem.
The birds are dying
and the sky is narrow
without its travelers.
—
Ivan Khenard Acero is an architecture student at UP Mindanao.