Echoes in Amber

The resin bleeds slow from the fractured pine, a golden tear caching the frantic beat of wings caught in the unexpected thick. Silence hardens around the struggle, a sudden fossil of the afternoon sun.

Dust motes settle through the eons, layering quietly over the glowing tomb, until a fracture in the earth exhales and the stone is polished by rough hands, warming again to the friction of skin.

Held up to the dying light of an autumn day, the trapped shadow throws a long reach, an insect ghost projected on the white wall. It still seems poised for an abrupt departure, frozen forever on the edge of flight.