Swallows

Swallows

I

Hundreds of flights in and out the nest

Hundreds of days of nursing without rest

A mosquito a time to feed a mouth

So a family of six in Sept. shall fly south

A mosquito is meat, however tiny a morsel

How many will make a gram, I can not tell

But I’ve learned to disdain anything not

What a good night’s sleep that I’ve got

Not a single mosquito to poison my rest

I can not help smugly counting what a bless

II

It turns out that the notes on the stave

Are the newly-brooded swallowlings there

That hunt seldom and rest for long

Why toil when there’s its own food to have

No wonder through June and July

I saw no swallows on the line but in air

 parents, too busy feeding their young

To rest a while, all day long they fly

Two thousand kilometers a day nonstop

Let the young enjoy their childhood sloth

Soon they will be migrating down the south

Upon returning parents they will be in turn

And breeding and feeding, no need to learn

The nest above my door is yearly occupied

Whether by the same birds, it’s not identified