'...And We All Fall Down'

Barefoot, and dressed in dove-plume hues,
I am learning peace. We're walking through
the cornfield, where the air
runs low and the gold rushes
against our legs, when you give me
the first insight. 'Here,'
you say, 'is a hand of seeds.'
You let go, and the essence of life
is lost in the land. 'Time,'
you explain, 'is built in an hourglass
from grains of sand.'
The lesson is to hold tight.

We go on. Above, starlings soar,
and the sky utters our reflections
whilst the white clouds
and the white clouds drag
me in four directions –
but it is you and your breath that catches
on me with its tiny hooks.
'Look,' you say,
and you show me the way,
picking a path beneath arches
of tree branches and brambles
that entwine over our heads
in a crown of thorns.

We go on, adorned in grass-
stained white, until the light
breaks and we reach the lake.
The water laps your feet
as you pace out, your shadow splitting
from your form. 'This is how
you discard your scars and take flight-'
You return pure.

But I am stuck where the edges meet,
for there lies the broken body
of a bird. Kite-boned, splintered wings
struck stark; the heart
blooming out like a great red fruit.
I bury it quickly, before decay sets in
or you can say
anything.

We turn back. You lack
no grandiosity in the dusk.

'One day,' you say,
'we’ll acquire the air
with our birdnest hair,
and climb, dark-spined,
to the clouds.'

'That is,' I frown,
(having learned the lesson
of the birds) 'until
we all fall down.'

* * *

Learning peace, the lessons of the birds and the art of answering back.

There are some bits of imagery I like in this, but the linkages seem all wrong. From the phrases I started out with, I wanted something more like In The Mother Tongue, but instead, I got this...
So basically, please con crit this all you like, it really needs improving!