Swallows by A. E. Stallings

Swallows

Every year the swallows come

And put their homestead in repair,

And raise another brood, and skim

And boomerang through summer air,

And reap mosquitoes from the hum

Of holidays. A handsome pair,

One on the nest, one on the wire,

Cheat-cheat‐cheat, the two conspire

To murder half the insect race,

And feed them squirming to their chicks.

They work and fret at such a pace,

And natter in between, with clicks

And churrs, they lift the raftered place

(Seaside taverna) with their tricks

Of cursive loops and Morse-code call,

Both analog and digital.

They seem to us so coupled, married,

So flustered with their needful young,

So busy housekeeping, so harried,

It’s hard to picture them among

The origins of myth—a buried

Secret, rape, a cut-out tongue,

Two sisters wronged, where there’s no right,

Till transformation fledges flight.

But Ovid swapped them in the tale,

So that the sister who was forced

Becomes instead the nightingale,

Who sings as though her heart would burst.

It’s Ovid’s stories that prevail.

And so the swallow is divorced

Twice from her voice, her tuneless chatter,

And no one asks her what’s the matter.

These swallows, though, don’t have the knack

For sorrow—or we’d not have guessed—

Though smartly dressed in tailored black,

Spend no time mourning, do not rest.

One scissors forth, one zigzags back,

They take turns settled on the nest

Or waiting on a perch nearby

To zero in on wasp or fly.

They have no time for tragic song,

As dusk distills, they dart and flicker,

The days are long, but not as long

As yesterday. The night comes quicker,

And soon the season will be wrong.

Knackered, cross, they bitch and bicker,

Like you and me. They never learn.

And every summer, they return.