The legend's wrong.
I always thought the phoenix rose
in its full strength and glory
from the flames.
It rises, yes,
as new and fresh
as dawn,
but not until 
the rushing violence of the fire
has cooled to embers;
not until the feathery ash
has lain in seeming death;
the black and grey-white cinders
still and cold.
When all seems gone
it stirs, a hatchling,
parent to itself,
and feeds upon the wreckage
of its past;
leaving clean the fire-scarred earth   
to sprout and bloom.
Then it rises 
like a sunrise
to begin another turn;
claiming sky and light to be
its rightful home.

Ann Dickinson Sargent