FALCON

Tonight I thought of you, a media sensation,
Back in those reckless years of the 80s;
You, who were free and full of life,
A fierce falcon, no mercy for your prey,
Wings unfurled, talons sharply seeking
Victims who had no clue of your speed --
Wings spread wide, your flight soaring high,
Then diving, spiraling down in a dangerous descent.

I still remember you as you looked back then:
Your boyish smile, youthful and handsome,
A disguise not reaching your piercing gaze
From those intensely bright-blue eyes...
But that wind-tossed blond hair held sunlight
And you could do no wrong until you struck
Like the falcon, falling from the sky
With death, destruction in its sudden dive.

I've often wondered if I could turn back time
And slip myself into your life back then...
Somehow ride the wind by your side
And feel the faraway places I've sensed
In your past travels toward oblivion...
If you'd have made me as infamous
As you became before they captured you?

You were a nomad, roaming in far, alien lands,
Always adventuring toward distant, lost horizons;
You were wild, an unfettered falcon then,
Soaring, swift-flying and blissfully uncontained.

But now that you've fallen from the brightness,
Caged, you are dying slowly, stilled and silent;
You no longer fly, falcon, you're chained, contained,
And I imagine your wings beating with ferocious futility
As I stand here beneath a star-bright southern sky
Where a million distant suns blaze in the cosmic ocean
Indifferent to human suffering, oblivious to our isolation.