Oboe noticed the swallows before I did.

Listen.






















This morning around 8 o'clock, I was checking my email and noticed that Oboe was reaching for something on the side of my drawing table. It took me a second or two to realize that she was trying to catch the shadows of swallows in flight. It was just yesterday that I had seen photos of swallows at Loren's blog and wondered when the swallows would be arriving here at Scudder Pond.

RETURN OF THE TREE SWALLOWS

TWO INNOCENTS WITH EXPERIENCE (2000)

All desire. No forgiveness.
Years later it was early spring with red-winged blackbird,
Goldfinch, faithful Canada goose on the trail
And return of the tree swallows.

“The tree swallow glides in circles,
Ending each glide
With 3 or 4 quick flaps
And a short climb.”*

Then I remembered.
He was sitting close to me.
Mr. Solitary Crow skipped by us like a child.
We laughed until we were children again.

This was how I experienced love.
I was innocent of forgiveness.

* from A Field Guide to Western Birds, second edition, 1961, by Roger Tory Peterson, p. 159.

("People Listening" (1984) and "Two Innocents with Experience" (2000), by Old Girl Of The North Country)

When I looked out at Scudder Pond yesterday afternoon, the tree swallows were flying back and forth in the sunlight above the golden cattails.

Aleph Series: Bhagavad Gita / Psalm 104 / Lao Tzu (2003)

My father died at age 89 on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, just before the Iraq War began. During the last years of his life he wrote his autobiography and chose this photo of himself at 30 years old for the cover:






















My father didn't consider himself an artist, but he was.

The Aleph Series is the only art work I did in 2003.

Today the swallows arrived at the cattail pond I look out on from my computer desk. Today to the east are the kind of clouds my father said were one of the many things he liked about Northwest Washington.