It’s warm. We long for the touch of chill, the promise of a frost we will never see. This is how we know it’s time and this how it has always been and yet…

It’s warm enough to stay. Here in our sanctuary, our oaken homes, we are safe. We know the way here and we know from the inborn memories of all the ones who went before that safe is not a place it is time and it cannot be held. We are nearly every place fluttering around the blue ball. From hot summer to hotter summer, we fly along the coast from Newfoundland to the orange winged forests of Michoacán. We are the journey.

It’s too warm. The blue ball burns. Everything changes except us. We are a through line, a clock. Already the days are growing short. Already the swallows Have gone to Caprastrano. Riding the currents we must go south. We are afraid but yet…