Devolution

A delicate creature she was
bones like a bird
little beak of a nose
voice trilling her welcomes.
If bird she was, a cardinal.
Flaming plumage she had,
her burnished fly-away hair
trailing her exquisite face.

Her body small and neat,
in its way sturdy enough
to take her to motherhood.
She’d also two dogs large
as she was not; golden retrievers
whose haircoats echoed hers.
Her constant companions
roaming through woodlands.

These creatures revolving about
her as though in an orbit
about their nurturing star.

Gone now, her companions
even as her children have
fled the coop she devised for them.
The children entering their futures,
the animals overtaken by their
finite life spans into oblivion.

While her future lies yet
yawning before her. She has become
as the sun, an orb of substantial
proportions, her hair still
flinging bright rays into the
atmosphere. Her petite features,
half hidden now beneath her
evolved gaseous rotundity.