Peacock Song

By Tara Gira

I can still hear the drawn-out wails

Of peacocks

From across the valley.

They call for danger or love.

Or both.

The meaning of their message becomes lost to me,

Amongst the sweet and sorrowful boxwood notes.

Melody and harmony,

Long lost souls,

Embrace each other through their escape

From their hollow, wooden chamber.

They waltz through the maze of feathers−

The emerald, golden eyes

Still visible,

Through the storm of white.

The old woman constantly fluffing,

Dusting,

Shaking

Her covers.

No one will understand this imagery you see,

As it seems to, also,

Drift farther 

From me.

Those flute sounds−

Like cherries,

Pulling their branches with them

By their roundedness.

Bursting with tartness from the distance,

And with a sweet aftertaste.

Providing the momentary cure

For stubborn, adult numbness.

And now the echo fades more,

More.

Disappearing into the ringing of my morning alarms.

By Tara Gira