By Patrick Benson

Copyright 2000 Patrick Benson

 Note: The poem is about parallelism between Phoebus, the Sun-god, who rises and sets in a daily cycle, and the mythical Phoenix which was consumed by its own self-created fire and rose again in "youthful freshness" from its own ashes. It's symbol of immortality.

Resplendent and refulgent
In his dawning coat of fire
(coppery incandescence against
cerulean luminescence)
He rose this morn from out the green and
Murky surface of the seas.

Soaring pinions scattering
Flaming droplets from their tips,
He rose to zenith. Now he dips
(through thunderheads iridescent
shedding embers phosphorescent)
Down through threatening, dirty clouds
Hovering like a smoldering shroud
Over green and murky seas,

He plunges down through violet twilight
To die behind the velvet,
Sable curtain of the night.