After centuries, still the sifting
of afternoon, the homing swallows
circling, shape-shifting,
immersed in what they sense,
and still this moment,
my shadow on the ground, I’m watching
what has never changed,
what seem random curves of flight,
yet their fixed points we’ll never see
above the olive grove, each skull aloft
ever since swallows first
emerged in Tuscany, and nearly always
there has been a moment waiting:
its creature watching shadows rise
from earth – and around me
crickets begin their chants overlapping.