Stately Grey

Stately Grey

by Elena Herman

Stately Grey, standing stock-still on moonrock

Among shaking sea and angels pecking

Hungry stars round their frozen deposed king-

Staring toward the seraphim, warding off

Heavenfall, and melding the sky with gold.

Stately Grey stands cold vigil, cold as guts

That glutted surf and slipped surrender on

The spearless palms of ancients; pearlescent

Eyes sniper-trained above piles of blue

Death, stoic under the snowed-in mountain

Of axiom and atom, of immortal

Silence. With wings singed by detonation

of all things, you watch them whimper away.

Stately Grey claws moonrock, skull raised to sun,

Watching all creation whimper away.

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Written about a solemn bird I met on the beach.