Black ash in a heap of ruin,

Dark clouds in a storm a moving,

Grey rain lashing and falling,

Despair and bleakness engulfing.

The clouds part as a slight breeze,

Bringing life that had almost come to cease,

A ray of light breaks the freeze,

As dawn is given a new lease.

The flakes of dead ash twitch,

A runty, ugly creature amidst,

Feeble, for a while it hides.

But within, the seed of life resides.

In time, a glorious creature ascends,

With wings of hope and feathers of fire,

Soaring above the ashen clouds,

Climbing up, higher and higher.

From ash it rises and to ash it returns.

So the cycle goes on for eons,

But in between the majestic phoenix lives,

Rise from ashes is the song it sings.

A.S.K