Poems by Themis

The Phoenix

The gold-blue bird is in the sun:

Silent and swift the white fires run

Down all the crystalled terraces;

But in the forest all lies dry,

Too frail to bear the blazing sky,

And no birds sing among the trees.

Only the red-green macaws sit

Pick-pecking at the Infinite,

Sullen or screaming to the blue;

The nest of incense, myrrh and spice

Has burnt up in the sacrifice

Both mother-bird and fledgling new...

Long twilights sweep across the land;

The thin trees leafless, sapless stand

With branches bare that skyward yearn;

The brown earth cracks to drink fresh grace,

The red-green macaws lift their face

And wait the golden bird's return.

The cycles of time move through the spheres,

The phoenix-fledgling slow appears

In the ashen nest where its mother lies;

All earth awaits the new-born bird,

The coming of the flaming Word,

Wings of renewal in the skies.

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