Ayfa’s Song

The swallows fly low tonight,
swooping and soaring
soon the rain will come.

I trudge uphill to the dun.
Children run past me.
My breath comes slowly.

They all held me mighty, then,
blood on the spearblade,
death in bright sunlight.

Better the spear had caught me
in my youth, my pride,
before my defeat.

In brings me grief, not comfort,
he died long ago,
upright, like a man.

Very few care for me now.
Rain makes my bones ache.
My deeds forgotten.

The swallows recall to mind
time gone, chances missed
and my only son.