Bird Woman

Published in Worthing Flash, November 2018
 
She wanders the fields where the elms once stood. Nothing stands there now, only the winter grass and a cold wind barrelling down the hill to the broken willow. Close to the edge of the stream, she dives into her coat pocket coat for the seeds and crumbs she keeps. She will wait for them to arrive; their fluttering wings matching the fluttering in her heart. No one knows she comes down here, day after day. Especially when the snows come, especially then. She won’t worry. Her feet have trodden these paths for eighty years – they belong to her now. Like the fox that passes each evening, they inhabit her dreams. 

The home of writer Bronwen Griffiths