Participles and Portents (3)

Night Song

I drifted with the rhythm of the sea, hovering in the sea's spray, of no more importance than a tiny droplet yet fully aware of the power behind the thrust of its full countenance.  Here, in my hovering heights, I caught the first ripples of sound.  A sweet clarion call that carried above the sea.  A full and exquisite twining of tenor, soprano and bass, each so pure that they almost hurt to hear, yet together they filled you up completely.  I felt myself, this small droplet of spray, straining to bring more into my being.  The song was an an ancient one, full of the old cadences and in an archaic form of Gaelic.  It was somehow both full of joy and yet intensely melancholy.  I listened, entranced in my liquid form, suspended and unmoving  - sensing somehow that should I allow the smallest of movements the song might end.  What a tragedy that would be.  I held as long as I could to this altered form and then, unable to resist the press of the sea, was forced against the rock and fell to the pebbled beach below.  The beauty slowly breaking apart as I broke, its voices separating and then dissipating.

I woke with a sharp ray of light over my eye and a pebble digging into my cheek, noting with a wry bit of humor that the saliva that had pooled at the edge of my lip and chin were not nearly as graceful as the dream I had just surrendered.  I pushed myself up hand over hand, the way you learn how to do in late pregnancy, and sat legs akimbo, remembering the dream.  I noticed then, rather pleasantly, that there was just a bit over half of the wine left.  Apparently I had not had as much as I had thought the night before.  I took a few sips and folded some cheese into a bit of bread, breathing deep, content in my isolation.  It occurred to me then that I would need to get back to the cottage soon.  My family would be joining me in just over a day or so and I had much to do to prepare for their arrival.  It is not as if I had left suddenly.  It had taken time to make the arrangements to have the months of time away, yet as with any decision like this, I knew they did not understand the needs that drove me.  I suppose to most people three months of extended leave from all that you know seems like an extraordinary amount of time to take.  Maybe all the more so, if you are someone they expect to be solid and consistent - the kind of person who never does anything out of lock step.  But my life had changed so dramatically over the last three years, it was time for me to find myself again.  I just couldn't continue to plod along as if everything still fit.  Sure, the clothes in the closet were still the right size, I knew the routes to work and home, my gym routine continued the same days and hours of the week.  Even the patterns of evenings out were the same.  But somehow the person who did these things, it just wasn't me anymore and I felt increasingly as if I did not fit in that "skin".  Hence the sabbatical.  I wasn't sure if I hoped to find my way back to harmony with all that I knew or find the next path, but I needed something.  Bored with contemplating the questions which continued to yield no answers for me, I rose and stretched.  I was eager to see the little cove again and, if willing to admit it, anxious to extend my stay in what I had come to think of as the cathedral of sacred song.

I made my way back to the little cove I had found the day before to say my good-byes and my thank-you's for the shelter.  What I found there left me cold.  Washed against the pebbled shore was a torn and bloodied swan, its long and graceful neck curled into a wing that gaped with a ragged gash just at the turn of the upper joint.  Here bright red lined the inner fold of the wound and lines of crimson crusted the edges and marred the ivory feathers.  Transfixed by the sight I almost did not note the pair of swans, necks entwined, issuing a low-throaty keen out in the waves of the cove.  This vision brought a shiver to my spine and, for some unfathomable reason, a flash in brilliant clarity of the night song from my dream.

Driven at last to action, I scrambled back into the cave.  I found the wine and what was left of the bread.  I searched for something that would make a decent bandage for the wound.  My shawl was far too riddled with grit.  I pulled off my jacket, feeling the crisp bite of the morning wind in the cavern's shade.  The shirt was not perfectly clean, but it was far better than anything else I had with me. It would have to do.  I stripped it off quickly. Shivering in the morning wind, I used my teeth and all the strength I could muster to rip the shirt into manageable pieces.  I slipped back into my jacket, gathered the rest of my makeshift medical supplies and the remains of the food I had with me, and hurried back to the cove.

The broken bird lay there still, unmoving.  Uncertain of my reception I approached cautiously, humming the chant from my dream as an offering of friendship and a form of comfort.  The long neck moved warily as  I came near and one clear black eye stared me down, but other than that there was no other resistance.  The other two swans, however, were circling in the air, making a riot of unpleasant sound that came forth as a strident warning to my ears.  Disregarding their hovering menace, I bent to my task.  I used the wine to clean the wound I could see and gently moved the wing to see if there was more hidden damage.  There were a few other scrapes but none as bad as the gash.  I washed everything as clean as I could.  All the while, the bird stared at me with that one bright black eye.  I saturated a section of shirt and folded it up, pressing it along the gash, and then used the remaining fabric to tie it on as securely as possible.  I soaked a piece of bread in some wine and offered it the bird.  It simply looked away.  I tried some dried bread and a bit of cheese; these it ate slowly yet readily enough.

I rose and crumbled what was left of the bread and cheese around the area, careful to keep a good deal close to the broken bird and the rest out of reach of the lapping sea.  I took one last look at my patient and whispered a promise to return, then left to pack what remained of my things.

As I moved away I noiced the cacophony of his two friends eased.  Turning, I saw them settle in the cove and pick at the crumbled remains of the meager offering I had left.  Somehow reassured, I turned my face to the crevice and braced for the new scrapes that would no doubt mark my passage home, if home indeed the cottage had become.