The Condor – A Poem

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3.)

“I have seen the truth and despair,
our chains now unpair, the rattle a song,
awakened mines below rotted soil
that ferried our toil, hubris in rock oil,”
a voice rumbled and grumbled.
A stony aperture shook off earth that fell into the brook
below, a sculpted circle peered at them
with wisdom and sorrow.

“What lies here?” the condor cried.
“A king, I fear,” the magpie replied.

“A king indeed, time has half sunk me to one side.
My shattered visage, now ossified.”

“We the old keepers of this land say to you, chicks,”
no smile affixed the other rugged mouth,
“North or south, find nowhere to rest thine eggs:
Thy stone legs will rise, trunkless,
your temples hollowed,
clawing and cawing at the cache
will brook naught but despair
and ensure the doldrums return.
If thee wouldst turn your visage from us with such knowledge, hear this!
To steal treasure from the kings of the deep
you must linger in their gaze and then sleep.”

“You are the fox, and you the bobcat,” the condor said, flapping their wings.
“I’ll not fall for slender tones,
our time is for us alone to claim, so put up your antique words,
or be smitten by our ire.”
The condor took to the skies once again.

4.)

“Now you’ve put your heart and soul into this
and lost your damn mind.
Who knows what other cold sneers command of us in
a year, let alone the day.
I do not talk to bray,
only see that the clouds are drifting too low.”

Here is my wing. Where is yours?
Try and understand the plan, good magpie.
Will is not enough.
A life means to submit to the subconscious.
Mine is telling me
to keep this loop, fasten truth to these lands once again.

Or have you forgotten,
the miles of towering ice
and gales that billowed and broke
and pounded the rocks like a gavel
where we tried to pull warmth from pebbles—
a meal from a sediment of sand and clay?

No, my friend, we don’t baulk or bray,
no, my friend, we do not move with broken lungs.
I stood with you by the bog so you could find your feet,
now use your wings: take flight!
Swirl, sweep, and unfurl!

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I did a silly: this poem is The Condor but for some reason posted a magpie and even renamed it. I’ve amended it all now!

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The Magpie & The Condor

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1.)
The magpie and the condor sailed far above.
One from the north with feathers burnt;
the other from the south, soggy and sloped.
They dived and swooped and formed
curlicues in the other’s eye
so that even sky and wind they’d defy.

Spoke the condor, spreading a wing over the earth:
“Atop these hectares will be a land of blessed gold,
whereupon we can build a legend that will never be old;
the chirrups will sound through the barks of redwoods and grains
with spiders and leatherjackets lying fat in the lanes
to pluck at the steps made in the ground, tilled for harvest,
shape lakes and valleys, slot pillars up under every nest!
And we’ll have a long bridge joining the gates that even the eagle will see;
they’ll be a mate there for you and for me.”
The magpie stared and squatted there, cocking a head.
For even the waves of the sea seemed like to be fed
fervour into the dreams the pair chased.
And with delight they set off apace,
making their worth.

2.)

Here is our temple where flame meets sea.
Raise up that ambitious stone.

The middle kingdom, grandest of all,
two powers instead of one,

The trees unsawn and
twist and bow for us

spreading their branches
signalling the return of the flock

that scattered like seeds, innumerable
into the crevices of history’s pages.

We bank past slumping hills
of younger and older stature.

Sun rising through the vapours.
Columns echoing past cheer

over the plaza,
sweep and wet our feathers

as wings slash the shallow lakes below seabed.
Now mud, memories of the water passed,

evaporated hope that shaped a filthy cloud
burying roads, a sediment now with

the great ridge of sandstone pinned by
osteoporotic columns thrusting into noon light,

fractured fingers grasping for
a corner of sun.

There, a moment, like a bobcat trapped in pursuit,
a stone shifts and is looking at you.

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