Shivering silver

The birds murmuring their magic

The blustery wind, curls and squirls around corners. Long grasses flip and switch forward and back. Rain has brought the flowers back to this once drought-stricken valley. The reservoirs are finally filling up! Today, bright yellow camomile flowers jiggle in the hedges and cobalt blue borage trembles around the farm gate.

Finches and serins on the telegraph wires are busy, singing like morse coders, squeaking, in need of oil. They wobble on the thick, silhouetted line. The birds seem agitated. They are all in their like-feather groups for safety maybe, though, to me, they look like they are having fun. They fly in a whirl of gossip and chatter above my head.

Distant planes approaching from the north, circle below low cloud, I see their lights glittering in the cloud first. The lights standing out, as if it were night approaching. They only come in like this, over our heads, when a storm is near. I chose to walk this morning in the wide-open fields, opting out of a tree falling on my head. Not today.

Far above the hill, a tightly knit flock of birds, as tiny as pencil shavings, is flying east. I think for a moment, they are leaving this moody scene, but suddenly they swoop and head west and as they do, their silhouettes become silver dust. This shimmering shoal, swims the sky, twisting and turning black again, then silver, then black. An alternating current of energetic feathers.

Their bodies spread out now and morph into a plough, then heavy, thickset shoulders, and then like liquid, they draw back in tight, becoming a perfect heart. The heart is alive, and it beats to their flight. It’s impulsive and volatile. It fattens as the birds spread apart and shrinks as they pulse back together again. I am swept away by their magic. The heart races across the sky until their mercurial shape turns silvery one last time. The heart misses a beat, it scatters into a thin, faint dart. The dart is made of a skinny, straggly line of outstretched wings, each bird alone, and they finally exit the landscape over the woods.

I shiver on my theatre wall seat. Writing this I have cooled. I sip the last of my cold coffee and head home, hoping for sunshine.

I wish you a happy weekend. A short story this week. I had a go at recording this week’s story. I know some people are listening to the stories on AI voices, so I thought I would have a go myself instead.

I spent a wonderful half-week on Exmoor with Dad. Work is unfortunately piling up, I would rather be in the hills, closing my ears to the news that gets more scandalous by the day. My book never ends, I am at least on the index at the back of the book. By request I am cataloguing where the photos were taken but it takes longer than you’d think. I am looking forward to the final chapter!

Look after yourself and see you next week.

A shout out to other writers who too love the birds, on Substack and whose company I love here Emily Charlotte Powell Susie Mawhinney David E. Perry Chloe Hope Holly Starley Kendall Lamb Linda Clark Dave Mead and Melissa Lee, Carmine Hazelwood and special thanks to Write Wild Sarah and Sarah Moorcroft and here’s to newcomer Fiona writes

An amazing story of spring by Carmine Hazelwood

Remaking the world

And speaking of grace, here is another beautiful piece by Susie facing all weathers in just one week

The impermanent grace of everything.