One Last Flight

A Poetic Fable

***

Once upon a time, there lived three birds;

Myra, Mura, and Mira.

Bound by wings and wonder,

the three siblings grew together beneath skies that knew their names.

They fluttered through days of honeyed light,

nestled in the embrace of tall trees and soft winds.

With Mother and Father Bird beside them,

they called Silverpine island home,

a place where laughter echoed through the canopy,

and the river sang lullabies to the moon.

All the animals lived in harmony,

sipping from cool springs

and dancing beneath the stars,

as if the night sky itself had woven joy into every breath and whisper.

But one day, the earth groaned.

The sky turned gray, and the ground began to tremble.

A great earthquake roared through their paradise,

ripping trees from their roots

and swallowing the island's songs.

The rivers dried into cracked memories.

The trees stood like ghosts.

There was no food, no water,

no warm wing to nest beneath.

All the animals were gone,

swept away by the trembling earth.

Mother and Father Bird, too,

vanished into the silence.

Myra, Mura, and Mira were alone,

as far as they knew,

the last fluttering hearts

on an island that had forgotten how to sing.

Silence arrived like a stranger with no name.

Ash fell like slow rain,

and the ocean whispered of sorrow with every wave.

Mira lay curled beneath a hollow log,

her wings torn and trembling.

Where once she had danced with the clouds,

now she could not lift even a breath of wind.

Her feathers had fallen like autumn leaves,

one by one, until all that remained

was the ache of a dream that could no longer rise.

Myra and Mura watched in helpless grief.

They wept beneath the pale morning sun,

watching their sister fade with each breath.

To love her was to suffer with her,

to feel each shiver of her broken wings

as if the cracks ran through their own.

So they plucked feathers from their own wings.

Soft and strong, tender with meaning.

And one by one they pressed them to her sides,

trying to mend what the quake had broken,

what the trembling earth had stolen without mercy.

But the feathers slipped through her wounds like water.

Their love, no matter how fierce,

was not enough to mend what had been broken.

Mira needed more.

More than either of them could offer alone.

To give her enough to fly

would mean they could never fly again.

Their own wings would wither,

and they would be left behind,

watching her vanish into the great, blue loneliness.

Mira’s breaths came slower,

like the tide retreating from the shore.

Her eyes, once bright, now flickered like a candle in the wind.

Yet in their depths, a longing remained.

She wanted to fly.

Just once more.

Even if it meant she might never return.

Mura, the oldest, leaned close,

his voice barely louder than the breeze.

“Let us give her all we have,” he said to his sister.

“Let her taste the sky one last time.”

Myra clutched her feathers tightly.

Her tiny voice trembled.

“But what if she flies and disappears?

What if the wind does not carry her gently?

What if we never see her again?”

The silence that followed was sacred,

thick with unspoken fears and hopes.

But slowly, Mura turned towards their youngest, Mira,

and saw in her dimming eyes

the flicker of bravery beneath the surface.

And with tears falling like dew, he whispered.

“Sometimes, to hold on is to lose.

But to let go is to hope.”

And so they did.

Feather by feather,

memory by memory,

they gave Mira their wings.

They cradled her between them,

nestled in a nest of sacrifice,

and sang the lullabies their mother once sang to them.

And when her breath steadied,

when her eyes opened with quiet resolve,

they knew.

She was ready.

And so they released her into the morning light.

At first, she faltered,

wings unsteady,

heart caught between pain and possibility.

Then she rose.

She rose like dawn over the sea,

each beat of her wings

a defiance of death.

She soared past the trees,

past the scars in the earth,

past the place where sorrow once slept.

The sky embraced her like an old friend.

And she flew.

Flew until the feathers began to fall,

one by one,

like petals surrendering to gravity.

Still she did not stop.

Not when her breath came shallow.

Not when the wind howled warnings.

Not even when the weight of goodbye pressed against her chest.

Her eyes, filled with fading light,

searched the horizon.

And there…

a glimmer.

A mother bird.

Alive.

Her nest woven tight with twigs and hope.

Her wings open, waiting.

With the last of her strength,

Mira pushed forward,

chasing that sliver of salvation,

that final promise

that she was not alone beneath the endless sky.

She flew towards life.

Towards a story that might still become something more.

And then—

A clap of thunder rumbles softly in the distance.

The children gasp in unison,

groans echoing beneath the baobab tree

where they sit, legs crossed and eyes wide,

as Uncle Sam closes the storybook.

He sighs,

slings his worn bag over one shoulder,

and smiles at them with a glint of mischief.

“Now comes the best part,” he says,

as he turns to go.

“The ending is yours to imagine.

Yours to shape.

Yours to finish next Sunday,

when the wind is right,

and the skies are clear.”

The first drops of rain begin to fall

as the children stand one by one,

hearts full, eyes searching the clouds,

dreaming up endings,

and learning that sometimes,

stories must wait.

But hope, like feathers,

always finds a way to rise.

.

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