PEACOCK

He wore the burden
of beauty not well.
And so one day,
escaping his cage,
a prison no more,
he stood still on the ground,
and found no one noticed.

He missed the acclaim
so spreading his feathers

he tried to return to

the confines of old

and found

a thousand eyes on him.

Happy at last.

Inspiration and artwork courtesy of and used by permission of

Christine Valters Paintner at abbeyofthearts.com

(Edit note: My brother in Christ,

John the Baptist, spotted my error.

A peacock is, in fact, the male of the

species. I've revised the poem to reflect

this fact. I think it makes the poem all

the more interesting now. Eh?)