First, they perch 
on the front porch lamp. 
Then, they smuggle mud and twigs 
to lay masonry: 
each plucked twig, 
an expenditure of wings, 
each mud bead, 
stucco that trusses
sprig to sprig.

On tiled steps, 
their cup spills, 
the overflow of twigs that don’t fit, 
the clay slip of pearls 
that drop from beaks.

Watching the nest grow, 
I don’t sweep discards. 
Each dry blade of straw is long as a tailfeather. 
Each clod of clay, an opaque pearl.

Swooping and diving through air,
the barn swallows catch insects
on the wing,
then scoop mud for the nest
without once touching down.
They are restless 
creatures of feather and flight.

Day’s end, the barn swallows 
perch again on lamp and nest, 
and peer at me through clerestory windows. 
Looking within and without, 
in each other’s lives we see the detritus
of misfit straw and misfired clay,
that multiply like loaves and fishes.

Yet, in each scrappy act, 
we see that love is restless 
once the work’s begun,
that love meanders like a stream 
until its task is done.