The swallows fly low tonight,
swooping and soaring,
soon the rain will come.
I trudge uphill to the dun
children run past me.
My breath comes slowly.
They all held me mighty, then,
blood on the spearblade
death in bright sunlight.
Better the spear had caught me,
in my youth, my pride.
Before my defeat.
It brings me grief, not comfort,
he died long ago
upright, like a man.
Very few care for me now.
Rain makes my bones ache.
My deeds forgotten.
The swallows recall to mind
time gone, chances missed,
and my only son.
Note on this poem
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