By ERNESTO PÉREZ ZÚÑIGA
Translated from the Spanish by OLIVIA BAES

Photo courtesy of the author.

Salceda Valley, Colmenar de Oreja, Madrid

I hear it sing after the solstice. A bird of prey, the little falcon with the beautiful song. A crystal line rising from the tree where it perches to the sky then plunging down abruptly. This is how the kestrel precedes its own flight to the zenith, as if it first needed to trace a path of fierce bells.

I am not the only one to hear it: the small birds flee to faraway trees.

This is the sound of winter, when the year begins in slumber, damp with secret rains in the dawn and combed by the blizzards which wait for the sun to set through a crack in the clouds.

It is during the day that the kestrel attacks the few sparrows cowering from the cold on the roof. Huddled together and silent, as if awaiting an airbus, they disperse in a daze as talons strike from somewhere in the sky.