Branwen And The Starling Poem by Tan Morgan

You were my shadow in the darkness
of the kneading-trough.
I taught you to speak, to love;
named you for the child I lost,
Gwern, my Gwern.

I might lose myself in the hills of Harlech,
leave you trapped;
I might haunt these woods along the shore
and not return.

My finger traced the scales of your foot,
threw me back ten years
to a bark gate and a sheep track
where I played barefoot on rock.

You sent me flapping at the wind's whim,
a voice above the waves - to taunt
forbidden ships - to save you;
but the trees tonight are full of spring.

The beat of your wings brought breezes of home;
your eye's liquid, the lake my childhood lost;
under the milky way of your plumage,
my hopes go whirling through the dark.