Anatomy Of Flight

Fragments from the ancient Kildean

You sleep, my heir.

Some little time we have;
From dusk to grey-lit dawn you hear these words
As low sweet music past understanding,
A melody that will not dissipate...
Know, then, this song was mine: I etch'd it thus
On stone reduced to dust – in ancient script,
A long-forgotten tongue the dead employ
To take counsel within their catacombs -
That stone in memory whispers, ebbs and wanes
With the dark unceasing tide of your blood,
Where once your soul resided in quiet.
This I bequeath you: dream, when I am dead.

Heed me, my heir. I cannot see your face;
Much like a child who counts his rosary
With wayward tongue half uncomprehending
I murmur blind, and trust I will be heard.
Our time is scant; sands shift within my glass.
My fate, once loosed, cannot be brought to heel—
It must needs run to its appointed end,
And I weary of borrowed days and hours.
What you must learn I leave as legacy.
I have walked Lea Monde for countless weeks
Committing my spells to her palimpsest;
This lesson is not your first – nor your last.

Music I draw with ruined sigils to guide you;
In the language of stone I sing to you of flight.

You start, my heir – is it my remembrance,
Some fragmented image you wonder at?
You think it alien. But understand,
The curv'd Damascene blade's every parry
And thrust follows on the sinews' train'd strength -
Bright death attendant on the deadly mind,
And so it is with this. Nay, take my hand:
In life I'd not have your deserved trust,
But win or lose, the game is at an end.
No false illusion this; no glamour, none.
You will have paid for geis and gift in full
Long ere our meeting – this is small amends.

Reach out your arms. You are strong, this I know;
A soldier, keen-eyed, sure of hand and blade,
And what magicks would best serve in combat
You will have learnt by trial of fire. This spell
Is something else again. Close your eyes.
Empty your mind; do not move, think or speak.
I will not linger over anatomy
Of camber'd wing and feather'd spans swept back,
Remiges and retrices, light and strong
The bones encircling the too-rapid heart -
Such terms will not avail, gotten by rote.
Take breath, and feel:

The metamorphosis
Of branded flesh and bone alchemical
That dissolves and reforms, lighter than air—

—The downbeat of wing, the headlong plummet,
The pull of the earth—

—And then, the ascent.

See, my chosen one, how simple it is.
Do you thank me? Is there some scrap of joy
To garner, in my fashioning of you?

—Ah, but I lie. It's selfishness, no more;
Through you I spin a music long disused.
The goddess who on deathly lintel stands
Exacts a price for power, bought and paid.
I gave my flesh for keener sight, for song,
Traded touch to the Dark, and at the last
With metal encased my mutable form:
Prophet and mage, yet never again bird
On the wing, nor splendid wyvern's brother.
These sharp preying claws are all that remain—
A souvenir, if you will. For what hawk
Or kestrel ever flew with plumes of steel?

Go now – dream or wake; I cannot follow,
And would not charge you with remembering.
I task my song sorely thus far to ascend,
Reeling out like a kite caught by the wind;
A scrap of silk in the blue living sky,
Tugging at the thread that ties it to earth...

A moment – a moment – brief beyond death or time,
Before I cut the thread that binds us still, my heir.

— Montreal, July 2003