Firebird 2025 | Poem by Vincent Tavani, Art by Bonnie Providence

8×10 Fine Art Print

Profits from sales donated to the Firebird Festival Fund

O My People

We are who gathered,

We, the palette for feathered flame.

Who is not here

That should be?

What did they carry

That no one else could?

How will you let their leaving

           Transform you entirely

While you are still here? 

Each feather has carried

First the sun into wood, 

Then a shipment with others,

And now becomes its own nest.

Are you the Phoenix

Preparing to change, 

Or the new Phoenix rising?

Or the bright fire between the two,

Not holding on to the light it has

But making all the night around it gold?

Or are you only watching,

O my people still here. 

Vincent Tavani, 2025