“’tis by the heaving of the Chest”, goes the old rhyme, but it’s none that simple. In any case: the Chest is the last sign. If you wait for the Chest, well, you may as well wait for the next breath.
No, we watch at the Lip. The Windmills are the first, if you know how to read them right. We pour over their dithered printouts every night. There, a pattern? A reliable trend? A bird’s wing can pollute the reading. Read the Village instead: one by one, we succumb to belief. Fewer of us young ones at the table each time, until only the nodding old men are bending over the parchments. We no longer need convincing: we build our machines.
By the time the creaking Tower squatting on the Sternum admits the ground is moving, we are ready. Mothers cry, but we can’t wait.
“’tis by the heaving of the Chest
that the beginning can be guessed”
No more guesswork. A flock of white wings, sons and daughters barely of age, await the breath.
“Fly away on Giant’s breath
Find life and love and a true quest”
It begins with the distant whine of the Windmills, fully awakened now. Multitudes of birds erupt from their trees in shock, having forgotten how it goes. The village explodes then: shutters clatter, roof tiles fly. All that is not tied down is now up.
Then it comes: the great Wind, the Giant’s Breath, grips and carries our fine wings. We fly, the sea beneath us, free as the wind.
And beneath us, for the first time, we see the sleeping Giant we used to call home.