EVER-FLIGHT
In the first days,
before hedges cut the land
and men tamed the fields,
two swallows fell into love so fierce
it drowned the turning of the year.
They lingered when the kettles flew south,
and in their rapture,
hatched nestlings
too tender for winter’s hand.
The cold came swift,
the frosts came hard.
The skies emptied of insects,
the earth locked tight.
If they huddled close, they starved.
If they hunted, they froze.
The chicks waned,
their voices dimmed
like embers in the ash.
The mother sang,
a song trembling between life and death,
a hymn of warmth that could not keep the chill away.
The father wept,
knowing love must pay its price.
He rose into the midnight sky,
frost crowning every branch with silver.
The heavens tore,
a star fell, white-gold,
blazing like a shard of the sun itself.
He dove, wings slicing darkness,
and caught the burning stone in his claws.
Agony ripped through him,
fire blistering flesh to bone.
Yet he held on,
love stronger than fear,
stronger than the laws of the world.
The star seared and smoked,
shards of light scattered across the night,
yet he bore it back,
claws burning, heart straining,
carrying the warmth of a sun
for the life of his brood.
He plunged into the nest,
legs lost to flame,
yet the star lodged in the branches above,
Casting warm radiance that drew insects from miles,
life returned through fire,
sacrifice made flesh.
The chicks were saved.
The mother’s song lifted,
praise and grief braided together,
for the one she loved
could never touch the earth again.
She sang to him across the seasons:
songs of sons he could never return to,
of a love undiminished,
though torn by fate.
Her voice became the wind,
a lament threading sky to soil.
And from him came the Martlet:
rootless wanderer of the air,
pilgrim of the in-between,
wing that never folds,
heart that never lands.
He bears the scar of fire,
and follows forever the voice of love.
And still she calls.
at dawn, at dusk,
a mother’s song unending,
a hymn for every parent
who has given all they are,
yet lost what they once held.
