FEATHER AND WING

I read a lot of science fiction, not as much as I did when I was younger, but enough. This poem is an oddity, I think it works but I also think it needs to be part of a sequence. I haven't written that sequence yet.

extract from The Song of the Variable-Sweep Wings

the silence of the great extinction

settled on the shoulders of the survivors

as if for the first time

they could see all that had been lost

and so set to refashion their world

shipping in from beyond the stars

mechanical birds to jewel their skies

and fill a space long vacated

by sinew and bone

feather and wing

having captured the thermal

see how their propellers idle

as they spiral ever higher

to spectrograph heaven with their metal tongues 

I like the epic nature of the poem, the feeling that the world will persist whatever we do. I know it will but these days I wonder if we will manage to persevere.

Here's another track off Maya de Vitry's new album.

Until next time.