Phoenix
My wings are shabby, rotten sails
that leak more air than they hold.
When wind threads through them
I hear dead bamboo rustling.
My creaking pinions,
calcified in every joint,
are happy for less weight.
I have given up flying.
Only the updraft below cliffs
allows me to glide now.
My plumage in hue resembles
the yellowed ivory of old men's teeth.
Wisdom is what remains, but at this age
it lacks the power of will.
It means, I think, to suffer
one's own nature to its end.
And when
I offer these wings on a cinnamon pyre
I know I will no longer know this,
and what ascends, unfledged as any gosling
shall be prone to repeated error,
condemned to embrace
the refinements of age
only after suffering youth's delusions.
This wisdom is too precious
to waste in a fire, but I must.
It is my nature.
Bio:
C. E. Chaffin has never been published in Poetry, Ploughshares or The Paris Review, though he has appeared in other journals that start with 'P': The Pedestal, The Philadelphia Inquirer Book Review, Plum Ruby Review, Poetry Tonight, Poetry SZ, Poetry Magazine, Poets' Canvas, Poetry Superhighway, Poetry Cafe, Poetry Exchange, and PIF. If he listed credits for more letters this would be an insufferable bio. A retired family physician, CE lives in Northern California with his wife and editor, Kathleen, two cats and a dog. He considers himself a Classicist in art, a Lutheran in religion and a Libertarian in politics. Shoe size: same as mouth. For more of his work simply google "C. E. Chaffin." His new book of poems, "Unexpected Light," is available through Diminuendo Press.
