Monarch

THESE LIFT me through the airy height-
These wings acquired through a night-
Into a foreign world above:
Of light and warmth and truth and love.

What seems a dream are days gone by
When I knew nothing of the sky-
Just toil on an earthly bed,
And thoughts of milkweed in my head.

But then I there within a husk
That dangled from an Aspen tusk
Began to form a different bent
That I knew not was Heaven meant.

And now I’m lifted through this air,
And though attaining beauty fair,
The only thing that moves me now
Is that I share this flight somehow.

-jwm