A rickety, ramshackle abode Broken windows, bats in the loft Dusty old spiders webs Hang like spectres And an old, now silent grandfather clock Where time had passed it by The floorboards creaked As mice scuttled along Holes in the roof Had let the elements in Recent rainfall At least Had washed away Some of the dust Yet deep down An old corridor Where walls hung empty A small glow of light Leaked out From beneath a door And the faint sound Of scratching could be heard As an old quill Connected with a yellowing vellum Words were born Thrown together As old India ink were leaked onto empty pages Drip drops created small puddles As if drunken spiders Had staggered across the pages There were two sources of light Within this dusty old chamber One came from an oil lamp The other From glowing coals within the hearth An icy chill wind Suddenly swept through the broken leaking windows Somehow snuffing out The lamplight Just at the time The heart of the old writer Beat it's last beat This author of words Would write no more The quill Somehow, and strangely Carried on writing Dipping itself Into the India ink Somehow empowered With a curious magic Its only memories Had been of flight And this is what it wrote of The memories, flooding back Of soaring skywards With its host And the thrill And wonder Of floating on the breezes Feeling the warm currents Caress its softness This mother host Also died The feather fell free Then floated along the soft grass Of a dewy meadow Was scooped up By its current host And taken to its current abode Where it's tips, were carved into shape As it was then fed with ink As it was guided onto the soft white vellum At first It had no idea That these patterns being formed Were words But soon Began to understand And learn And feel the thrill As the writer wrote With the same excitement As a bird in flight Their heartbeats Not disimilar The quill Began to write With a mind of its own Of the land, the sea, the sky And as it wrote The emotions, and feelings Of its two hosts Rippled through its feathered body As it began to appreciate The beauty of the seasons And the music Of birdsong And the magic Of mother nature And for the first time It cried Soft gentle joyous tears That fell softly Like a trickling stream Watering down the India ink That in turn Fell onto the soft, now yellowed And aged vellum And were soaked up Into the poetry Of life The ink, one day Dried up And the feathered quill Fell into a deep sleep A peaceful calm repose As it lay down Next to the words Of its life Now as quiet As an unwound clock