The world is suddenly full of swallows

Now, of course, there seem to be swallows everywhere. I just have to step outside to see them, tracing rapid arcs in the blue sky and between the trees, looping around me a few inches above the grass as I walk across the football field.

I hope that they've just arrived; I don't like to think that I've just failed to notice them. The thought has just occurred to me that they might be mid-migration, on their way to somewhere else. I hope not, but even if they are, even if they've all gone tomorrow, it seems like a miracle to me to have seen the world so suddenly full of swallows.

They are amazing. Their blue is deep and brilliant, but somehow gone before your eyes can catch it, the evasive blue of reflective trickery rather than pigment. Their bellies are the colour of sunset. They move so fast that I can't work out whether their throats are a brighter red or not, though I keep convincing myself one way or the other.

Our kingdom is speed,
we make the earth to run
and the sky to spin,
gracefully.
Never shall we be caught
even in your eyes.