Listen….
Here, where white feathers mark the spot. Stand and open ears and heart.
Now all that is left is white bone and ragged feather. Once these were two swans.
She gathered up the armful of bones, cracked by the teeth of stealthy foxes, picked clean by weasels and stoats and ravens. She took the bones home.
The breastbone curved like a boat with oars. The wing bone, hollow. She made a flute from the hollowed bone and played a song.
In the song two swans flew across the land, over oceans, side by side. In the song wing beats matched, warm sun warmed feathers, hearts beat steady. In the song two swans came to a lake shore and built a nest, and in the nest three eggs. In the song the pen swan sat through long lazy hours warming the porcelain smooth eggs, feeling the chicks move and grow while the cob sailed around her great wings raised, defending her from foxes and mink and man. In the song eggs hatched, dark grey signets emerged into light and were carried proud on mother’s back. In the song they grew, feathers became white, by autumn five swans flew, away from the cold that fell over the land, across the ocean, across cities and hills and into Wales, where one swan flew into a cable stretched across the sky and fell, down, crashing to earth. And her cob circled round, calling and calling and saw her white shape as he too hit the line and down, down onto the ground, stunned and then dead. Earth bound, forever until almost a year later, an armful of bones, picked clean by the ravens, bleached by the summer sun, white as swan’s feathers. And she made a fabulous flute, hollowed from a wing bone and lifted the memories in story and song.
( Earlier, White feathers and red fur)
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