“I am, I am, I am”
She cries,
As she skims over treetops and barns.
“I am
here,
After Six thousand miles,
At last!’
The staccato song of her travels,
A whirring, churring, chirping call
Traces her journey back
To these green pastures.
It tells of her flight,
From the arid scrub of South Africa,
Across shifting Namibian dunes.
Skirting the skeleton coast
She flew North.
She soared over the Zambizi,
Swept down to drink from the Congo’s water,
Twisted and flitted through crowded Brazzaville streets,
Then on,
Over Savannah
And dense rainforest,
Where Colobus calls echoed amongst the trees.
Before her the Sahara,
She crossed it,
in two hundred thousand wing beats,
To reach the Souks of Morroco.
The Straits of Gibraltar beckoned winged migrants on
To Europe.
A skipping flight through Spain and France,
She barrel rolled over the channel
To these familiar shores.
Along the way we called to her,
Pointing
At her tumbling, tearing flight.
We named her;
Inkonjani
Tififiliste
Hirondelle.
She is
Malenkama
Nyenga
Golondrina
Gwennol.
She is
Swallow
She is
All of these and none.