The Bard of Liminga — Ray Sharp

The girl who calls herself Swallow,
ensconced in deep red draped
from hips to floor, kneels
demurely like a Baltic mermaid,
red hair falling across her shoulder
to her right breast, a small pendant
hung on a thin gold chain
against her fair, translucent skin,
a serene smile that reminds you
of La Giaconda, the same lovely face,
creamy shoulders and hands

coupled in her lap like two birds
held gently in a red velvet nest,
eager to take flight. She is
a songbird on the south shore
of the Gulf of Finland, a singer
and flautist, student and teacher,
who walks the narrow cobbled streets
of Tallinn, between twisting stone walls
and medieval churches where she
hears on the fresh ocean breeze
faint echoes of the old melodies,

the tinkling of ice crystals in winter
and the rustling of small animals
through florissant fields in summer,
and she plays them in her mind
and with pursed lips and
restless fingers that form the notes
on imaginary flutes carved from
the hollow bones of birds.
There is great joy in joining
the chorus of voices
that take flight together

at the song festival like
a flock of wild birds,
and the flute in her hands
flutters like a swallow aloft
on a delicate current of song.
Swallow leaps into the sky,
spreads her wings wide
and glides above the green world
floating and banking and swooping
earthward like the swallow
she has become, and thinks
now I know why the birds sing.