Lonely Flyer

He flies through the air.
He soars,
circles,
and cries,
and has no where to go.
He has his eerie,
on a narrow mountain ledge.
Mother is all around,
but he is alone.
He has killed his last lamb,
and no longer knows what keeps him flying.
But he does.
The next day,
and the next,
and the day after.
He drinks from a cascade
that no man can climb.
He eats from carrion,
at the risk of being slain
by dozens of vultures.
His mate has gone,
and he wants nothing else.
Where has she gone?
So he flies,
and he soars,
He knows nothing else.
Prone to the hunting farmer,
prone to the world,
at the mercy of nature.
And not willing to fight.
Just flight,
that’s all that’s left.
Up, up, up,
Searching for the highest,
the ultimate,
thermal.
To soar over the world,
in search of Heaven.
Thermals carry him,
they take him way above the earth,
even higher than the vultures.
He loves the thermals,
they care,
they lift him up,
and caress him.
They show him how he could have been,
a King of birds.
He is good at it.
Flight.
And he knows it.
His territorial adversaries admire him for it.
He can soar,
but nothing else.
He looses weight,
and the thermals carry him higher.
He gets close to Heaven,
yet so far.
Just one more step,
one more day,
and he will make it.
Round and round and round,
he soars.
Up and up.
Then he sees the futility,
drops,
down to the cascade,
and he drinks,
in flight.
It gives him strength,
so he does what he does best,
he soars,
up and up,
round and round,
above the clouds.
Now his mountains are out of sight,
out of mind,
and he goes up,
and up.
No eagle was ever so high,
so nothing else mattered.
There is no end…
But then suddenly he dropped.
Pain throbbed through his body.
His flight,
out of control,
sent him spinning like a top.
Feathers ripped out of his wings,
as he plunged,
down, down, and down.
Through the clouds,
towards his craggy home.
No dive
to survive.
He had been looking for affection,
security,
love,
that he once knew.
But now it no longer mattered.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
Carrion.
Just carrion,
for the Griffons,
and then the Lammergeier.
He never found the answer –
there is no Heaven.

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