Lovebirds

Beauty lies before me, as I sit transfixed to her sight. She is a mighty colossus --- a white-breasted majesty, bright and vibrant as the midday sun. Her plumage is red as the cardinal - her light illuminates my very being. I visit her every day. Does she notice as I grace her - how I fly so low to match her glorious train?

I admit, she is fast. She is urgent and pleading; she is as the mouse before the fox, and as the fox before the wolf. Speed is her game - she flashes urgently with radiance and grueling energy. Some judge us. Her size and mine are ever unconventional. She so dwarfs me that I, ever fearful of reproach, hesitate.

I see her along the blackened path beneath the treeline. She never stops to rest. She glides forever and ever, so low that if there were the slightest imperfection - she would surely break her wings and forever be lost to me. The worm in her belly is odd. I have never seen a bird whose food was visible before.

Perhaps, I should speak to her of it. No, I think it a matter of acceptance - not judgment. If I were to love her as owls are compelled by the Gods to do - forever until death; I must surely accept those beautiful flaws as nothing but affirmation of that which is most divine.

I have seen the osprey, dive loosely upon the watery straits, hoping to catch a fish or a glimmer as bright as the flare which engulfs me. Speaking of which, I see her! Again, she flashes past - she is luminous, glaring, porcelain white perfection! I have seen another marker --- another emblem that she wears!

Upon her beak lies a mighty red bird - it is so much smaller than her. Her mighty wings are a magnitude - no, even grander - than her emblem. Angled as the finest beak, her mighty red bird perfects her symmetry and boisterous presence. She floats again with a never-ending volley that beatifies the greatest. It is a thrust that distinguishes the holy from us weaker, mortal beings.

Yet, again - the worm distracts me. It is a large, hideous thing. I have seen them turn our homes inward, felling treeline after treeline under great beasts of burden. With their grimy tentacles, they cut...after cut...after cut. Yet, too, the worms have built us great nests to perch upon. They have built us great boxes to the sky for us to gaze upon.

It humors me that she consumes them so readily.

It is fitting for the worms they are.

Tonight, I sit here among the branches beside the blackened path that separates our ever-closer lanes. I wait here. For I am patient, and I hope, a fitting suitor - for such a lovely bird as her. I have confidence that I can match her stride tonight. She has never tarried, and neither shall I!

Yet, I worry that she may fly beneath me. She may very well never see me! I must fix this! Tonight, I shall sit where she flies past! She will see me then! Then we can speak --- I can call to my soon-to-be-beloved.

I see her now. Her light flows ever gracefully across me, as calm and bright as the end of a summer storm. I know she sees me now. On the ground, ever so low, I even see the worm inside her belly.

I call from the ground below.

"Hello! I see you! You are the most magnificent thing I have ever seen!"

My screech must not have been understood.

"Hello! You are beautiful beyond compare!"

She has not stopped her flight yet. Her light grows thicker and thicker.

I can no longer see.

"I am blinded by you! Do you see me yet?!" My screeches become pleading, as she flies ever closer. I am scared.

I see more of her now.

Her beak is not a beak. Below her, lies two black circles that she glides upon. Her plumage is a lie, her face - a deception.

She is a beast!

She does not see me.

The worm is driving.

I cannot escape.

Oh no.