Portfolio Piece 3

Phoenix

Do you have to be burn to be a phoenix?
Do you have to have flesh and blood?
An earth piece, dirt and dust, compacted and warmed by
Its own beating heart, eaten, melted, joined and
Folded, reborn through the mountain cracks, slow, smooth, pure.
Nothing like the bird.
Do you have to lose yourself entirely?
Do you have to be new?
When the toad freezes in the winter, ice crystals forming in its heart. Eyes glazed.
It melts, bit by bit, toe by toe, until its itself
Again. Too old and cold to be a phoenix?
Too icy, too predictable. What change can you
Go through without the fire?
What soul must be tested? What flesh melted?
We all burn, but we don’t come back.
Dust and dirt, ash and ash.