Apollo and the Phoenix

It is evening, and her wings
Stretched like a giant horizon
Burnished gold, molten red
Bleeding shadows into the earth
Her form shimmers, matured
Ready and awake

Her pyre is primed
She has collected all she needs
Myrrh and branches, sheets and limbs
To catch the quickest, to burn the longest
Torches to brighten her

The fire bird had found him there
Quietly listening by cool waters
Hearing her song of immortality
Silently stirring it with his own
The warmth of ageless eyes
Both enchanted by the light of the other

So the god ignites
As nerves and sinews blister
Rivulets of fire catch feathered skin
Charred and singed in smoke
Her eyes close, his melt into hers
Their vision intoxicates them

The old world sighs to hear them
Like ancient Persia, her beauty encompasses
Drowning him in lost antiquities
His mythology re-writes itself
The moon cuts it's cord from her belly
Incandescence her swan song

But our night does not hear them
Our heavens gaze down and stare at nothing
The stars map their own celestial places
As foxes walk home on tip toe
Dawn waits, looking to the East
And in the embers of spent ashes
A man and a woman rise from the soot.