NATURE Poem: Wings of the South, by Samantha K. Collinson

Flight takes hold
across the southern ocean’s depths—
Spring,
nestling to create anew.

Lifelong they are together,
older but forever here.
Their young will rise
as they disperse,
carrying the thread they’ve sewn.

A chick, coated in warmth,
loved—fed fish, squid, and more.
Hunting grows harder
as numbers thin,
yet down they dive,
again and again,
to nourish her.

Aged, they struggle on—
days blur into weeks, months.
She grows.
Feathers of flight unfold,
her wings flapping
until it is time.

Proud, though their last,
as age holds fast,
the chick, now an albatross,
flies on.

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