When the Swallow Calls

Who am I to accept such a gift? Of perception and value. Of compassion and faith. Of creativity and grief. Despair and delight. Time and desperate reflection.

Receive, whispers the wind. Sufferance, I rebuke. Embrace, babbles the brook. Resignation, I reproach.

Hearing a sound, I look up. A swallow soothes singing her chirps, chatter, and amorous ticking. I take this offering without reservation. Liberally absorbing her sounds, as if they’re meant for me. Callings for her lifelong mate, not me. Yet, I answer her call, closing my eyes, with deep breathes and smiles and adoration.

Isn’t it my right as an observer?

Would she be piqued at my arrogance? Her care is not for me or my sorrow.

She wakes with no expectation. Of finding insects or fruited trees in winter. Feels no remorse for surviving. For taking. For getting. She lives without questions of worthiness or merit.

Danger looms and when the feral cat strikes, or the Black crow swoops, she neither hesitates to escape, nor internalizes the attack as punishment. Cats need to eat, too.

Even in her exposure, she won’t relent. Predators, broken wings, acidified lakes, deforestation. None will dampen her will.

All living creatures succumb to the ravages of time, though. She is no exception. Parasites await the aged swallow. T-cells decrease and immune systems weaken.

Then, the raid.

An infestation she didn’t foresee when feeding hatchlings. Flying to hotter climates filled with an abundance of gnats. Outpacing the weasel lunging for a snack.

It is the way of things. This invasion without reason. She dies as she lived – bold, resilient, formidable.

I should like to die that way. Resolute, steadfast, tough. Unconcerned with reasons or punishment or causes and cures. Living for fruited trees covered in frost, offerings of my wife’s warm embraces, standing on my own two feet today.

I hear the swallow’s call and wish so badly to answer her. To accept her present and my presence in it. I exist in both her song and my pain. At not understanding what I did to be witness and beneficiary, of nature and illness.

How do you view your illness/disability? What do you receive from your circumstances? Are you able to accept the gifts of life, even amid hardship and pain?