This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue
My friend Eleanor Robinson of Old Lyme was dying of cancer. In late September 2021, she and her husband, Mark, invited John and me to go on a swallow watch on the Connecticut River in their boat. Eleanor had devoted her life to music and, as co-founder and first director of the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center, to the birds of the shoreline. She was very frail that evening but determined to go. She did this every year, she said. It was my first time. As the sky filled with tiny wings and as they swirled and swooped and climbed and then flawlessly funneled down, I myself was transported by the scale and the grandeur and the magnificence of what I saw.
Afterwards as we walked slowly back to our car, I tried to put words on how unexpectedly moved I had been, how transcendent it was, how the spectacle had lifted me out of myself and had taken me up and into it. I asked Eleanor what happened after they descended into the salt marsh. “They cling to a feathery frond,” she answered, “for the night.” The image of all of those little bodies in the dark, holding on tightly to slim strands of marsh grass struck me as wonderfully poetic. I told her so, and she quickly answered, “If you write the words, I will write the music.”
The experience was still so vivid and real that I wrote into the night. I sent my poem to Eleanor the next morning. She died shortly afterwards. I hope the timeless movement of her birds and the music of her indomitable spirit is somehow captured in these words, and that, if she is listening, she will recognize herself as she looks down from her new home in the freedom of the blue brightness above.
A tree swallow about to land. Image Credit: Getty Images/Leola Durant.
Clinging to a Feathery Frond
All together
Into a new blue brightness,
We awake and take to the air.
Up and into the fast and free,
Down, and onto, and over the sea.
Dipping and diving,
Swooping and climbing,
Snatching a tiny space in the sky
For just a second then moving by.
Swopping places and
Changing paces,
Gliding and sliding
Without colliding.
Never brushing a feather
And yet together,
We fly alone and we fly as one.
At the end of the day
We gather and play until,
In a sudden graceful hush,
We dive together in a sunset rush.
Clinging now to a feathery frond,
Which for tonight will be my magic wand,
I look up at the dimming sky,
It lets me know that night is nigh.
I see my heaven. I see tomorrow.
I see my friends as they quickly follow,
Descending also into the night,
In a funnel of air, a tunnel of light,
Raining down to also cling tight
To their magic fronds, well out of sight.
And now in the dark we whisper low,
Nowhere to fly, so we dangle slow,
The day went by too fast, we agree,
Faster than even our eyes could see.
But with our fronds as magic wands
We take to the skies with stars for guides.
We dream together in every hue for
A day as fresh as the morning dew.
We will awake again and we will fly
Up and up and into the sky
Fast and free and over the sea
Soaring and sailing endlessly
Dipping and diving,
Swooping and climbing,
Snatching a tiny space in the sky
For just a second then moving by.
Swopping places and
Changing paces,
Gliding and sliding
Without colliding.
Never brushing a feather
And yet together,
We will fly alone and fly as one.
At the end of the day
We will gather and play until,
In a sudden graceful hush,
We will dive together in a sunset rush.
And clinging to a feathery frond,
Which again will be my magic wand,
I will look up at the dimming sky
And know that another night is nigh.
But more than that, I will want to say
“I played my part in the eternal play.”
My role is to travel the skies by day
And in the end to find my way
Back to where our peace resides,
Back to where our soul revives,
Back to where the stars above
Watch over us and show us love.
All together we are never alone,
A drama so splendid we cannot own.
To gaze upon that mystery
Is to catch a glimpse of eternity.
Catherine (Cathy) Flanagan is a psychotherapist, author, amateur photographer, and a lover of textiles and patterns in nature.
