Yes, I know it’s already October; but in the year I wrote this poem the swallows left earlier. What matters is the sentiment: now that surely the very last of the Irish swallow stragglers have come in off the bay, hawked a while for food, and then pushed on southwards, time to give these lines an outing.
From my book To Marloes With Love…
Ice cream continues to sell well;
But the swallows have left.
Still, postcards are put in the shop’s outdoor racks whenever the weather is fine;
But the swallows have left.
The sea remains warm;
But the swallows have left.
No more excited chatter just outside the kitchen
While I make breakfast;
No more pointless panicking
When I go to the shed for the scythe.
No more cheeky aerobatics around my feet as I
Walk the paddock’s perimeter, rousing flies from the long grass.
As the bare ‘phone wires bear witness, the swallows departed yesterday,
And I am missing them already –
But at least I have my shed back,
Meaning I can start to sort my firewood uncursed by hirundines.
And now I have no reason not to wash the car;
For, henceforth, it will afterwards stay clean.