The swallow bends its flight on an invisible hinge,
skims the air above the garden, lands between
the row of kale and row of carrots and pecks
at the straw before flying away with one
golden piece dangling from her beak.
She carries it to a place between the house
and gutter where I had never noticed before a gap.
How does she know how to see such things—
to fly past a wall or a roof or a cliff and know there,
there is the place where I should build a nest.
And how does she know what materials to choose,
this straw, this grass, this bit of what looks like nothing
to me? In my own house, I sometimes try
to build a house—scraps of softnesses
and thoughtfulnesses, snatches of sweetness.
I weave them into a nest that no one else can see.
It’s only recently I’ve noticed it myself, this blind drive
toward making a home out of oddments and fragments
and notions. It’s only recently I’ve noticed this, too,
how everything I build, I pull apart.