top of page

No. 1 

 

Frozen in Fear. In Death.

 

Away

From the flock.

 

In the depths of the

Dark

Deep

cell.

 

Gasping

for breath.

 

Mouth

Open.

Neck

Strained.

 

Craning for air,

for light.

 

Was your loss noticed?

Mourned?

 

Were your cries heard? Blocked?

 

Were you remembered,

  or forgotten

When you settled, lost in the smothering dust?

 

But you are remembered now.

You are found.

 

A memory

is made.

 

But not of your life,

 

Of your Death, 

So visible in it’s terror

 

Suffocating in the

twisting

of

your form.

No. 4

 

Air rising

Stratospheric soaring, up, beyond 

  The clouds

To where the line between land and air

  Curves 

  

Wind, wild

Feathers pushed to the body

Streamlined

Clear

Spiraling higher, gliding.

 

Boundaries vanished

 

The freedom of

Flight

 

The freedom

Of life in a moment.

 

Away 

From the dark

In your dreams

No. 5

 

Death is not heard,

Death is so silent

when it settles. 

 

Did I ever hear it, feel it? 

 

I only felt it when found.

 

I felt:

No-one to comfort,

to hold.

 

I felt:

So 

Alone.

Absolute.

 

I felt:

Fear and blackness

No words.

Just space. 

 

I felt, what you felt.

Infinite in your

State of

Alone.

 

I will hold your memory

Engulf it, you.

 

So the cold hand is 

 

Gone.

 

Though it never truly will

It always will be

your last memory.

No. 7 

 

The rot

Slow.

 

A silent, 

lonely grave 

among the ancient soot

of long forgotten fires.

 

Feathers fall slowly, like the touch of autumn

as decay quietly, gradually engulfs.

 

Moisture

Absorbed by dust.

 

A skeleton of fibres and desiccated flesh settles,

Undisturbed.

 

 

Until open!

 

Bird is found, resurrected!

 

A memory that never was,

is now.

 

A memory that never was,

begins.

 

An identity never known

becomes.

 

Bird is,

 

And might be, 

 

Remembered.

No. 2

 

The colours gone.

The soot absorbed.

Time.

Taken.

 

Greens of feathers

once

Glistening, Iridescent.

Time.

Taken.

 

Dust remains

 

Flat

In the Dark

 

The Browns sit.

Red brick, but not

 

Red

As we remember it.

 

Mute.

 

The colours of song are now

 

Gone.

No . 3

 

What led you here?

What made you fall

into the darkness?

 

Was the sky still blue

When you were sucked

Down

into the dust?

 

Had you flown the skies, 

Soared the clouds, touched the sun? 

 

Had you skimmed the fields glistening

  in the morning dew?

 

Maybe you glided the depths,

through ancient forests

crumbling barns, and 

darkened cities?

 

You must have sung your song above and near; 

 

I may have answered.

 

Yet you floundered here, 

Trapped.

Calling.

Unheard.

 

Here you settled.

Silent, twisted.

 

Here you gave yourself to the dust.

No choice.

 

And quietly, slowly you were taken

Away from the skies,

 

to the ground

No. 6

 

Down. 

Trapped within 

the Dark.

 

Wings clipped; no flight

Up

to the light.

 

Bird in the dark.

 

Away from the flock,

Hidden,

Calling?

 

Is the sound muffled?

By soot?

By time?

 

Suffocated by the  

Blackness 

Of time?

 

The light, Brilliant in the distance

 

High above

Fades

 

As hope for flight, for life

Fades.

 

Blocked and dying, 

  Blocked and dead.

No. 8 

 

Dark

    Alone

Nothing.

 

Broken

    Straining

Nothing.

 

Calling

    Crawling

      Pain

Nothing.

 

Waiting

    Fear

      Cold

Nothing.

 

Breathing

    Fear

      Terror

Nothing.

 

Thirst

    Hunger

      Pain

Nothing.

 

Weakness

    Scratching

      Whisper

Nothing.

 

Dreaming

    Whimper

      Fades.

 

Nothing.

No. 9

 

Found.

 

Beauty in the life that was.

 

Questions?

 

Surface - the whys and how

 

Look.

 

You’re more than a thing of wonder, 

    More that a thing of beauty.

 

You’re a wonder of life

 

Gone.

 

You’re a picture of

       The agony of death.

 

 

Sadness

 

That you died so near, 

 

Were there for

    so long.

 

Unheard.

 

Unknown, until

 

Now.

No. 10

 

When silence fills

The gap

 

It shouts so loud.

 

Where is she now?

 

She cannot have gone

So far.

 

So sudden

 

It registers somewhere, but not here.

 

How to fill the gap?

The silence?

 

The shard of emptiness

 

Stabs

All works © Annabel MacIver. All rights reserved
bottom of page