Swallows

Swallow the snow bank caches

that overrode the gutters, this

exercise of winter. Their spillage

over days, call it

river in slumber leaving pockets and fists:

migration of the birds. This morning,

for the first time in months,

there were songs over my head,

and I’m certain,

below me as well.

I could describe 

the way the clouds echoed

a settling Orange light and how they augured.

How from a passenger seat I 

watched the sky Open

like a chant to all that is good

and beautiful in this world.

(How to escape in the nick of time, but

in the traffic the storks follow

close behind,

and the buzzards---

you know this. Yet somehow, still,

your pockets full of treasures

and seeds left to store.)

All day long, frostbitten hands held like cups,

hoping one or two might catch the light.

If you dare to look: crows and swallows both

over crop fields, unstoppably forward,

circling the plains

and the highways

and the yards.

To think, that all along,

little by little,

night after night,

they crept toward the light.

The mystics were right.

The moth follows the flame.

From my car I can hear them say:

I’m on my way.

I’m going home.