My Swallow Fellow

Just a swallow back out looking, A flick among pinyons Set the clock to summer and my heart to swimming Like first pools of gnats in the canyon: I saw them standing in the still air Minding some dance by my rocks Older than stone ax or the animal path there Or above the swallow flies hawk.

I felt wealth to the hilt at spying doings Forgotten like charred logs - Summer! - argued apart by shifting southern snows, Dry ashes and draped sun on rocks.

(Have I addressed rock too much - dry or wet? A marmot admires home Standing at his fortress lookout surveying times, The horizon a spring-filled dome.)

It's a special day for a swallow For cruising cheer is all back, The crisis of ice-ledges and coyotes crying Is over, when you see that fellow.