Seven Swans

It is a ‘finisterre', the ultimate west, the end of the road, the end of the world.

There is open ground ahead, rugged, bare, grass-covered; it could be an old rubbish dump; toxic ooze might slowly seep into pools; rusted shapes might protrude through the grass; the ground might slump beneath the foot if one should venture there beyond the high, mesh fence.

The wind stirs the tattered weeds.

A kilometre and a half away – the quarried-away stump of a holy hill, and along the front of it are dark trees.

Beyond is nothing – the western horizon.

The wind whips at him, it moans and roars in the wire.

From here, at this distance, the black body of a flying swan is invisible against the dark trees, but the white pinions catch the light.

Seven swans fly down in a line in front of the trees.

It is a white line of calligraphy; a twirling scrawl of some lost alphabet; it is a song without words; it is music without a tune; the moving finger that writes unknowable words on a wall of air; it is communication; a spinning, double-helixed, branching skein of life.

The fog in his mind; the heavy rock in his guts; the cruel talons that tighten round his tiny, crushed heart – for a moment they lift.

It is worth it after all.



Barnaby McBryde