How many swallows make a summer, how many does with their fawns crossing the grass beyond the greenhouse, how many tree frogs in the tangle of plants by the front door, how many waves of honeysuckle blooming over the garden gate? How many morning swims, how many ripe tomatoes sliced into a bowl with basil and good oil, how many nights lying awake and wondering how many more there will be?
Last week, walking down to the lake, I saw a mink dart out of the woods, on its way to water until it saw me approaching and it turned back to the safety of the underbrush. John was swimming that morning or another when he came face to face with a frog in the deep water. I came face to face with the sky, patches of blue after rain, and I watched the moon on its way west, its trajectory the arc of my arms as I swam.
How many swallows? There were mornings when so many dipped and turned in the early air that I couldn’t count, their wings so close I could have touched one or more. So many insects on the water’s surface, so many little fish rising. Crows, an eagle, two mergansers leading their young along the shore, loons, two adult geese and nine full-grown goslings swimming in formation and then all of them taking to the air, flying away, away, all but one swimming after them, its wings fluttering.
How many swallows? This morning, just one.
...Theresa Kishkan 