mud swallows

The house we are renting has a few termites.  The landlord wants to have it tented and fumigated, but we have mud swallow nests below the eaves and they are protected.   They saved us!


I wish my whole battened
heart were a property
like this, with swallows
in every room – so at ease
they twitter and preen
from the picture frames
like an audience in the gods
before an opera
and in the evenings
wheel above my head
in a mockery of pity
before winging it
up the stairwell
to stream out into light
The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,
Touches the honey-slow river and turning
Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves –
A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.

-Ted Hughes