MATRIARCH

- photo by S. Auberle

They called her the Matriarch,
these small humans who think
they can play at being gods
and they captured her,
placed her in a zoo,
mated her to Igor, for babies
which she produced
for a world that, mostly,
didn't care--she was,
after all, only a bird
and ten years later they
set her free, her job done,
her wings no longer clipped
until a pig hunter soon
blew the Matriarch away.

He said he didn't know
the bird with the giant wings
was a California condor.
Why must people destroy
the splendid beings among us,
the ones with ten foot wings,
the nameless ones, the tender-faced ones,
the ones with souls that soar high above?
Is it to bring everyone down
to their level, down to the muck
of a world gone increasingly numb?

I've seen a condor soar above me,
above the temples and spires
of the canyon, with majesty
only a Creator could have designed.
I've seen pictures of the innocent ones
in Iraq, Afghanistan, in Africa,
the nameless ones, the babies and children,
and I've wept for joy and pain.
I have watched light rising ever so slowly
out of a night as black as the Matriarch's wings.

- mimi