I waited in a tiny house without a light or door,
That each progressing day was slightly smaller than before,
Until I felt the sudden urge to break and struggle free.
I came into the world in only natal feathers dressed,
Among my likewise siblings in an interwoven nest,
Atop a shrub amid a land surrounded by the sea.

Each day my father came to us with smaller lives to eat,
As slowly I grew larger and my feathers more complete.
Along my longest finger formed a broad and glossy wing.
With wings to press me forward I could climb an upright wall,
And now the nest where I had dwelt was also strangely small,
And I could not ignore the larger island's beckoning.

My wings had grown sufficient to support my weight in air,
And prey could now be chased and won without my father's care.
Observing my lagoon-encircled kingdom from above,
Another hunger came to me beyond the quest for food,
To recreate on my behalf my natal nest and brood,
And prove to a companion my deserving of her love.

For every female sought a male with finest wings and flight,
And through the simple wish for one most pleasing to her sight,
Ensured that every pairing was with genes that could excel.
By many years of romance would my offspring rule the air,
Although I could not live to see the fruit it all would bear,
The time was no concern to me, for I have waited well.

---

My task was to provide my young what I had once been fed,
No matter through what peril or expanse my journey led,
Until a fearsome tempest that my wings could not surmount.
With feathers wet amid the waves, I lacked the hope of flight,
And swimming strength was spent before the shore had entered sight.
It was the ending of my life, but not of my account.

This was no ordinary tide where I had flown my last,
Where bodies are recycled and their elements recast.
I floated through an upper veil of life, then sank below.
Beneath the deepest waters lay a realm devoid of time,
Where creatures found their rest atop a bed of softest lime,
And blanketed in sediment like gently falling snow.

The world above my dreamless rest did not remain the same,
And those who died were soon replaced as other orders came,
Although my own remained among the few who would prevail.
In great advance across the world, they gave me little thought,
Their precursor of finger-claws and carpals now forgot,
In frozen stone with wings outspread, without a head and tail.

Another kind of creature that across the planet ranged
Soon measured time in numbers, and its land in ways that changed,
As things they knew as empires or kingdoms rose and fell.
They prized the stone around me for an etching or a floor,
As I awaited one who knew what history it bore,
The time was no concern to me, for I have waited well.

---

In nineteen fifty-six I was allowed a second birth,
By one who thought a crayfish was my unimportant worth,
Until he came to understand the prize he had in me.
A cherished place he gave me in the house of ancient stone,
Though only with the promise that I must remain his own,
For one found every hundred years must not be given free.

I stood in famous view among the life of long ago,
Until my master's hopes endured an unexpected blow:
Another of my kind was found, with pristine plume and bone.
No longer unsurpassed I was, in master's sad appraise.
No more would he present me to the world's capricious gaze;
In aging hands would I remain, observed by him alone.

As time grew long and age grew frail, in solitude we shared,
And measurements were changed again by broken lands repaired,
My master knew a final place where he and I must go.
A one found every hundred years he could not give away,
But notions of such grandeur had descended to decay,
And preservation was a place that none but he could know.

I learned of master's death upon a snowy winter day.
I am his greatest legacy, though in the strangest way,
For with him died the knowledge of what fortune I befell.
My home is now no darker than my home in stone or sea,
And ages need not pass before I hatch from secrecy.
The time is no concern to me, for I am waiting well.