The Flight of the Phoenix

This is a work in progress! This poem is meant to have a stanza at the beginning of each of my novels in my Phoenix series. There will be at least one more stanza. I really, really want to know what people think of them and if they'd find that an intriguing beginning to a novel. (By the way, I've got the prologue to my first book posted! If you're interested, please read that, too! It's called Heart of a Firebird.)

Touch the star-lit words

Raindrops cascading from an emerald leaf

Falling like tears of music,

Soft chimes upon the ground.

The wind, low voices

A storm, a mournful violin

A requiem that brushes a trembling sky.

Hesitant sunbeams pierce the quavering clouds

Like a melody on a piano

And the rippling silver grass

Like whispering—

So reach out, Phoenix, stretch to the sky

And touch the star-lit words

That ascend to heaven on gold-speckled wings

Soaring into the distant reaches

Of flaming eternity.

O, remember the Celestial Fire

Born again into the One

Of white angel wings,

Each moment of beauty

Suspended in stillness,

Illuminated to astonishing clarity

As redemption is born

And the Five are One:

Fire, Wind

Water and Wood

And Earth, the Immovable

Inside she, the Phoenix, in whose eyes

Is the power of Emtipha

And the beauty of all magic.

-

The Phoenix on silken wings

Fell to Earth, a single star

Tumbling from her beauteous home,

An angel stripped of glory and power

To dwell alone—

Scattered memories and shattered dreams

A life left frail and crumbling.

But she rises again in a halo of flames

From the ashes of her withered life,

An ember catching, spreading fire

To burn in her blue eyes,

Power.

She finds her strength; discovers reason

And through the fear becomes a beacon

Of hope unto all those lost

Or kept subdued beneath the hefty burden

Of life without liberation.

For within the Phoenix lies the beauty

And the radiance

Of the brilliant sun

That soars above, proudly in the sky.

And within the Phoenix’s gentle heart of love

Passions brood on,

She exudes brightness, the truth upon her tongue

And trails stars behind her step,

A voice to sing down the moon

From her lofty perch;

For the Phoenix song remains

A luminous lullaby

As she spreads her wings and takes to the sky.

-

But deeper is the story,

More important the tale

Than the beauty or magic within,

For every Reality had a role to play

And each day guided by the red path of Fate

Leads into infinity

Where she stands beckoning our wayward hearts.

Lost and alone no more,

The Phoenix bore the dreams and pains of others,

Lifting them on her shoulders

So they could climb to new heights.

Like a wayward flame

Drifting along the endless ocean

Or threatened by a raging storm,

She couldn’t find her place in the world;

She built one herself,

Of sweat and blood and tears,

Of laughter and dancing and love.

Those hardened beyond emotion

Found their hearts in her gentle hands and kind smile

As she kindled flames of faith and courage

To face whatever trials should come

Pounding on our flimsy doors,

Ready to knock down our safe havens

And leave us tossed on the restless sea.

With every memory, the Phoenix knew another tear

But she bore the burden beyond the sun

So she could rescue those oppressed by greed and hate

And spite—

And in this she found purpose, her reason to live.