This poem is about rebirth, resurrection, renewal as symbolized by the Firebird of myth and legend, that is know in many cultures. Known to the Native Americans as the Firebird, interestingly enough, that's also what the Russians called it. Of course many believe the Native Americans came across the frozen Bearing Straights, right after the last ice age ended, from Mongolia.
The Ancient Greeks had their legend of the Phoenix. Ancient Egypt had a similar legend of the Benu. They were also associated with the color purple, and considered royal in nature.
Due to it's characteristic of resurrection, early Christians adopted it as a symbol for Jesus Christ.
There are many other examples in other cultures. The Persians had the Anka; Turkish had Kerkes, Tibetians had the Me byi karmo, and the Chinese had the Fenghuang. I tried to blend some of these mythologies into the poem.

Purgatory is believed to be a place between Heaven and Hell, where blemished souls, not so evil as to be damned, await their cleansing, so that they may be allowed into Heaven.
Some believe that Christ released them upon His death and resurrection.

This poem is a Sonnet, written in iambic tetrameter using the abcb rhyme scheme.

This picture is actually a gnarled tree stump that I came across in Blue Mounds State Park of Southwestern Minnesota on the Great Plains, in August 2012. It reminded me of a bird sitting on a perch in the foreground (look for a wing)ready to fly out of the smoke that is billowing and rising up behind it. Although a still object, it looks animated to me. It will become one of my Animated Stills collections of poems. Animated stills are poems where inanimate objects take on human, animal, or spirit forms, traits, or articles. They are derived from Photographs I have taken, that have moved me to write a poem associated with it.

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