Flight School
This year's barn swallows come down from the eves
When I first moved to the island, I did everything I could to dissuade the barn swallows from nesting on the house. I swore at them, played loud music, sprayed the hose on the “jet” setting in the general direction of their mid-air swoops. At one point, I managed to spray down a nest in progress. But that made me feel worse. The barn swallows came back and built a second nest a few feet away from where I had demolished the first one. Their perseverance humbled me.
Now in May, when I spot the first returning swallows flying by the house to scout out the best real estate, I smile. By the middle of June, the hatchlings arrive, and only a few days later are large enough to beg loudly for food at 4:30 in the morning. I sleep with the window open so I can listen to them cry out for the opportunity to live. Some days I’m not sure I want the opportunity myself, but then I find the other ones—fallen, stolen, hunted, abandoned. The owls are hungry and my home’s windows are deceiving. I don’t know what is fair or not. But I can root for the swallows born on the eves. Which I do, when they drop down, huddle in a group on the deck’s railing, and take their first awkward flight toward the dark spaces of the canopy just beyond.
Flight School
This year's barn swallows come down from the eves, land first on the railing, hesitate. Downy-necked and plump, the fledglings open wide their beaks, waiting for what they have known to still come easy. These beasts are the lucky ones. Yesterday unveiled a stiff, grounded goldfinch. The day before a scatter of blue, shattered eggs dusting the trail's carpet like broken bits of sky. I could continue counting backwards to sum up the losses which will surely go on. I could blame the sheen of the windows, non-native owls, the cellular disturbance. But the juveniles are perched on the rail. One unfolds its angel bones, leaps. Then another, and another. And they go. And I want to learn everything they know.
Thank you for reading.
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