I heard the swallow has betrayed the south-bound league.
Into the fatal arms of winter she dove, a solitary soldier
leaving behind a trail of rain-soaked cloud
already mourning her death.

In the forsaken forest, the swallow often sighed,
breath full of sorrows.
Yet no one knew her troubles, desolate troubles
that bubbled up from her heart,
Like raindrops, like storms, like tornadoes.
Nocturnal feet danced upon unturned stones, under which those fearful souls
slept, seeking permanence in time and forgiveness.

In the land of darkened purpose, the swallow often circled,
tired of her own shadows.
Water fell from the her wings onto dried-up honeysuckles. Those colorless kisses
rested upon the pale bones of broken lilies.
So many of them, once green and alive, unconquerable for an age,
knelt down at the dark wind’s hand, surrendered their petals to fate.

In the night of coal-black ashes, the swallow often pondered,
Will there be courage in those tarried morrows?
Darkness came with furious gallops, as if maddened by her presence.
She stood on the monument of seasons, unmoved by doomsday’s silence.
How she came to find the bow and arrows
buried against the foot soles of an ancient dream –
No one knows.

I heard the south-bound league came to the shore of soft violets.
They put red cherries between their teeth,
and tied forget-me-nots around their feet.
But they forgot about the name of their homestead
and their trembling friend.

Come first snowfall, when all the babies went to sleep by the lulling mountains,
I looked up to the infinite sky,
and I saw her –
A solitary soldier, with burning plumage on her shoulders,
A few bent trees waiting on winter,
and a star, defied, without a murmur.

 

originally published on August 14, 2015 on my old blog