Hope Is the Thing With Feathers

While kayaking today, I watched dozens of Tree Swallows skimming low over the water, scooping up insects.

The females are fairly drab brown, but the males are a magnificent cerulean blue.

I watched five or six birds zip into fist-sized holes in an overhanging rock cliff. No doubt their young are inside.

As I paddled away from the cliff, it occurred to me that Tree Swallows have nested in these hard stone holes for scores of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — of years.

Modern humans and their cars, kayaks, and houses are but a wink in their time line. No doubt, on the eve of human extinction, Tree Swallows will still be flitting in and out of these stone holes along the river.

I like that. I like to see signs of hope and endurance.

What’s the line? “Hope is the thing with feathers.”

Yes, indeed.