19
A Season of Swallows
Journey With Altered Perceptions
They come in a ripening April, lanes long and heady with dew and ransoms, soaked by the singing-in of sweet miracles... Weary-winged veterans full of creak and clamour, resuming old turf wars in barn and byre. Dawn light breaks earlier now, dappling the clouds with finger-light touch… Feverish activity indoors – relentless clocks ticking like metronomes, defining the impatience of time. A sudden downpour releases sweet sweat of late spring warmth, hanging the damp morning air out to dry.
This pilgrimage has miles to go today, Sun melts to shadow, mellows into twilight.
Dipping and darting, settling only where instinct gives safe landing, a wild chorale of well-schooled song;youthful energy belying the frailty of their bodies. A weft and weave of nesting, birthing and fledging follows. With wings full-bloomed a distant marshalling call resounds on the balmy air amid siflitt and su-seer* Nights lengthen, daylight shrinks, gusting winds chap skin with sharp slap.
My heartbeat bounds in rhythm with the wheels; faster than witches now, excitement builds. I flinch as wayside stations shout out BOO! Surely they can not recognise my face? A shepherd’s hut winks back, a station plaque stares out defiantly to meet my gaze. A platform porter, hat perched high, mouths words directly at me as the train slows down. And now the kiosk girl is beckoning, shouting, Her loud recriminations aimed my way! This ride is so familiar, yet today I view through x-ray spectacles small shards of severed souls, ignored for far too long. How can I start to quantify their needs? Gone in a flash and mine to wonder why they’d chosen me as scapegoat, advocate? Perhaps mistaking me for someone else…..? Someone whose journey now can never end.
Rising en masse, a courageous gulp, the lure of warmer climes compels; a whoosh of frantic flap and flail, then gone into the morning haze, the only echo a hollow murmur lingering briefly on the chilly air... Summer gradually fades to dust in a feathered drift of ghostly dreams
*siflitt and su-seer describe sounds made by swallows
Margaret Royal
