Face to the sun like a child you shout 'The swifts are back!'
The Tea-Time Write-Along Writing Prompt
This is a post for paid subscribers. There’s a paywall lower down the page beneath which is the writing prompt and poem extract we used in yesterdays warm and nourishing write-along session.
Want to join in with all the benefits of paid subscription? You can do that here:
Late May - the greening has occurred. Where I am in the north of England the hedges are still white with hawthorn blossom, the ash only just leafing up, but a handful of swifts have already returned. Last week, or the week before (time has become a bit wobbly wobbly of late, while I’ve been in promotion mode) I was at Filey literature festival, standing in a darkened theatre, going over my notes for the talk I was about to give about the remarkable history featured in my memoir, The Ghost Lake. A slice of daylight was falling through the slightly open fire door at the back of the room, when I heard the unmistakable screech of swifts overhead. I ran. I ran to the slice of daylight and poured myself into the sunshine and there they were, zooming overhead; an utter joy to behold.
I have seen them in the village too now, though only two at a time. By mid June there will be twenty or so, and everyone in the village will talk about it. It will be a kind of communal joy. So rare for everyone to be drawn to a thing like this, the hope embedded in the return of the swifts.
The moment of noticing always reminds me of this line from Anne Steven’s poem, Swifts:
But one day the swifts are back. Face to the sun like a child You shout, 'The swifts are back!'
And that’s where we are going with today’s prompt.
Thank you to everyone who came along to share the hour with me yesterday. It was, as ever, a warm place of rest, a swift stop of creativity at the end of the day.