Nessun Dorma
I ride with pathos. I ride the river bank and I sing aloud, and along, and for once, I do not whistle.
I have so many more summer seas, but I needed one last snowbound, homebound ride with the birds. I needed to come home. I had to come back to the city. This is now.
And I ride through the first snow, and I sing a song for my boys to come join me. And will take each image as it comes, no edits. You do not edit love.
And I call, and they come, and they answer my call, and the shy rooks come along, the winter guests, and so do the jackdaws, and I am embraced in a deep, dark, dense vortex of my own making.
I am embraced in a black cloud. I am turning this story into my own make believe.
I love these birds. They are so rarely loved. They are so often used. Metaphored. Killed. Shot.
I do not ask for their love. All I ask for is their memory.
I remember your torn wing.
Your black beauty, I remember, little hybrid. Your broken foot. The balance of wing and claw.
I remember the day you were born.
Your first nut. Your first flight.
The day you scratched your first pigeon shadow.
The day I protected you from a hawk. Do you recall the sudden silence of the wind when I interfered?
I remember the day you met your first strange bird from the East, and you did not attack it, but shared your findings. And it shared a song, and a light, and a long beaked story in return.
Do you remember ?
And now the rooks come and join in, join in our ride, and in our winter song. Can you hear them sing? How lonely they must feel, all wrapped up in one song. Always the same song.
Shadows on the wall. Shy, and utterly untrusting. I wish I could tell them about us.
And still: They are light savers. They eat the city, and swallow it whole, and turn it into a song.
What more can you ask from your guests?
