Dead Angels

Dead Angels
Christopher Bogart

Brief bursts of frosted wind
Whip through these fields,
And dries the weeds
To a brittle brown.

Launched from crumbling pods,
Their seeds sprout wings,
And with brief abandon,
Fling themselves
Upward
To populate the pale gray sky
Of a fading sun.

They rise
In alien formation,
Committed to the fight
For a chance at future life.

The victors fall
Far beyond the call,
The death rattle
Of their parents past.

There they burrow
Deep into the ground
In a winter repose,
Until warm replaces cold.
When some will rise
Through new and fertile ground
To await the new sun’s reign
Over better days.

Their fellows in the fall
Lie in dryer ground
As dead angels,
There to fertilize the soil,
For the royal of green sprouts,
And new wings,
Grown for the promise of
A new life of flight.

But I will not die
On this dry ground
As some dead angel.
I will fly to fertile ground,
to grow,
to dance
In the warmth of new suns.