by Adele Evershed

Listening to a podcast about disappearing birds
I learn the house martin is in danger
Those shuttlecock birds that threaded through my childhood
Leaving and returning as reliably as bruises

It was thought they sank to the bottom of lakes
Until spring when they’d reemerge like a creation myth
But now we know they disappear in Africa like Livingstone
Though as my father taught me— he was famously found

2020 was a bad year for house martins and us
A time when we were famously house bound
It seems they just stopped returning home
Like I did after my mother passed into the ether

The ancient Egyptians believed they were ciphers of the spirit
Whirling at dawn—returning at dusk to the safety of prayer
And I wondered if they disappeared forever
What would that tell us about the shape of our souls?

I know this world is too full of leavings
Still I order a concrete nest from Amazon
And as the first black and white occupant arrives
I smell talc—my mother’s old scent
And I think maybe at last
I’ve managed to do this one thing right

Image via Pexels by  Marcin Jozwiak