Swifts – Swallows:
joy of late Spring
flashed on their wings:
while a world moved
about their arrival
in slow motion.

Wild, restless, they
dip, weave,  dive
above fields, quarry,
over old hedges sun-
streaked, damp -
dappled. Summer-free.

Autumn: earth’s magnet drew
them away on African odyssey.
Our house was their house:
free-loading our welcome
they leave with their brood..
Will they ever return?

Surely, as instinct.
Now they have gone
desolate Winter fills
the hole those birds
have left in the sky.

TOBIAS