Roc (The Winged Colossus)

Bestriding the cliff’s great precipice
talons stained red with elephant flesh,
its wings summoned the wind;
eclipsing the sun

before beating
slow, thunderous applause.
Allowing its mass to defy gravity
itself – a majestic ashen silhouette

glides, scything through the air like a
vicious kite, feathers tousled and white.
And as its screech splinters
through the valley,

a young, lonesome boy
miles from his home, tears through
fields of thick, untended grass, towards
the safety of the hunters, hidden in the

undergrowth. A sudden rally of arrows
meets the beast’s baited swoop;
amidst the calamitous galloping
of horse’s hooves.

Yet the sharpest blade
would only pock the wizened skin
of the Roc. And when the hunters’ corpses
lay scattered under dusk’s watchful gloom

the boy lay flat upon the blood-spattered
glade, and as evening’s light began to
fade, the Roc took him in his beak;
trees whistling, protesting

against the sheer force
of pale, reddened wings. And nearby,
upon the cliff’s great precipice, there’s the
distinct shrieking of an ever-hungry hatchling.

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Inspired by the Roc, a magnificent, gargantuan bird of which stories originated from the Middle East. The Roc was an adept hunter, so large it could capture and devour an elephant within minutes.