When you’re in the eye of a storm, finding solace may seem impossible. But life has a funny way of leading you to solutions. This is a poem about overcoming struggle and pain.

Soft Landing

 Turbulent skies strangle thoughts
of soft landings,

wings flapping terror and toil
in the black of the day,

blind muscles propel upwards
in the eye of the war

against its breath / the bird livid and numb
in freefall / rising above

the mud and wild winds
colliding with wall after wall.

Only frayed feathers to show for
and creeky claws

beak cut open / the air begets not 
one whisper of the crushing.

But the softness of the feathers finds
a port in the bosom of the warm earth

rising / to pull the broken-winged down
into love's plane for a soft landing

not so accidental / every feather smoothed
the bird rises and touches down

as time prescribes
and the soft warmth of the earth commissions. 

Anita Alig 2018

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