SPRING 2018 FIRST PLACE
Heron
The December tarmac’s glazing treacherous black. My mind should be on the road, not with my mother, left in the echoing house.
I take the roundabout too fast.
There it is, standing guard. I’ve never seen one here. No water, only frozen fields. Sentinel grey, crunched into its awkward bones, those quilling eyebrows. Unmistakable.
I hear his voice.
“Hamba gashle.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
“It’s Zulu. It means…”
I whisper it back as the light fades.
“…Go safely.”
I flip the visor against the falling sun.
Pheasant
We startle them into clattering flight. Survivors, seeing the New Year in against the odds.
One stays grounded, escorts us like a maverick sheepdog hitching a walk.
That look. “Dad?” Joking.
It stops. Its feathers glint rainbows in the iced light.
That sideways look. “Is that you, Dad?” Half-joking.
The absurd lens of grief.
Sparrowhawk?
Hard to tell. We pass so quickly.
Roadside perch. Sharp eyes scanning.
“What do I always say?”
“Keep your options open, Dad.”
Robin
On a clear day you can see the hills he loved from here.
This is not a clear day.
Every voice feels winter-stopped.
In the branches, a spot of red, defiant.
“The robin keeps singing right through the winter.”
Its sweet strain clarifies the clouded air.
“Very few birds do that, you know.”
The mist begins to lift, a little.
Goldfinch
The feeders have swung empty for months. We knock the nails in lower so Mum can reach, refill them with rich sunflower hearts.
“They’re back!”
From the kitchen window we watch a charm of gold glitter the garden.
Curlew
Spring loops in on that cool, clear call, back to breed on the hard, high moors.
“That day we found a nest, remember? The baby curlew? The parent bird circling overhead?”
The wind lifts heady scent from the greening woods, scatters blossom like confetti, accepts the ash we offer.
Skylark
You hear it first, notes like diamonds etching glass.
Lift your head. Turn your face to the full sun.
“Look long enough, you will see it.”
There, infinitesimal in the infinite blue.
Do you see him?
Yes! There! Rising, singing, rising…
