Simurgh

The signs are not subtle:

Fire and black rain
fall on a city
that stood 6,000 years.

But do not allow yourself
to reduce it all
to prophecy
and symbolic logic.

The flesh that burns
is flesh

the cries that rend
heaven and earth
are human cries

and though all
was foretold
none of it was inevitable.

All was the choice
of men drunk
on opposing delusions
that end in the same fires.

What awakens
in my grief and rage

remembers the felling
of the ancient forests

and I become again
the hairy man
who dwelled there.

I cast my lot
with the bird
who shakes
the tree of life,

sending down
new seeds to open,

and with the serpent
who rises
from the waters.

This world
must bloom again.

photo from Wikimedia Commons