The Man with the Crow Feather

Like a murmured tune from an obscure song he's buried in the crevices of my memory. His face merely a flicker, an ember, burning from a secondhand fire, alighting my mind.

His clay sage face, creased and tattered like the bottom of a slave's foot, one, who has plowed the endless craving earth, still plagues my thoughts.

His long satin midnight hair, casts a shadow around him slithering around his body engulfing him. A crow's feather, adorned his head, making a nest along the twirl and gleam of ebony.

He was an eagle soaring through the sky, bound by no man, a bird without a cage or clipped wings. His spirit sang of the times when he was young running through the imperial forest believing in things only fairy-tales could create.

Time has trickled away like wet paint sliding down white walls. His pendulum is slowly beginning to halt.

I stared up at this man as tall as a mountain, unruffled; no matter how hard the wind thrusts against it.

And I, merely a lanky little thing kneeling below him, await his voice, as strong as thunder, to speak. He never utters a word but simply stares down at me with owl-like eyes. That bronzed face, like the sand along the shore, remained illegible.

Before the fates clipped his golden string with their scissors, he called me a sparrow for I too would have my time to fly.

The legacy of my grandfather, known as the man with the crow's feather in his hair, will continue with a girl. One, who has a sparrow's feather adorned in her hair.