Swallow Dance

They sweep, a-dance, a trio
Swooping wildly o’er the water,
Darting wingtips washed by wavelets
In the swerving, swirling chase.

They soar, they dive, they rise,
Gliding up above the shoreline
Showing black against a skyline
Soft with opal-gleam pastels.

They hover over color –
Pink and purple, greenish-blue
In a fragment-mix of motion
As the wavelets chase the sheen.

Then again, against the cloud-light –
Coral, blue-green, lilac-gray;
They trace a tie between the two
While weaving lace-paths with their ways.

Of Spiderwebs

Shimmering silken strands
Shivering, shining in a sunbeam
That slips through shaded boughs
And streams to spot the grass below –

A thousand quivering strings of glimmering
Catching, stretching out the glitterings,
Tracing rough and darkened branches
White with lacy lengths of glow –

What are these but plain and ugly things,
So many spiderwebs ‘mong branchings
Of a single, simple pine tree
That weeps sap-tears to the ground?

Yet they become much more than just themselves:
When o’re-washed with bright cascading,
Clothed a-new with light’s remaking
They’re transformed and glorified.