Migrations

by Charlotte McConaghy

There is nothing so disturbing as a creature born to flight being bound to dull lifelessness.

“Don’t be frightened. There’s nothing here but flesh and feathers.” Doesn’t he know? That’s the problem. “Open your eyes.”

it went for four years, every day without fail. Until I left not only my mother but my twelve kindred spirits, too. Sometimes I dream of them waiting in that tree for a girl who would never come, bringing gift after precious gift to lie unloved in the grass.

If I had the power, I’d carry the birds all the way. Protect them from the journey’s difficulty. Then again, it’s a fool who tries to protect a creature from its own instincts.

it’s simply remembering what it feels like to love creatures that aren’t human. A nameless sadness, the fading away of the birds. The fading away of the animals. How lonely it will be here, when it’s just us.