An annual collaboration of Tower poets
and local Carnegie Gallery artists for Arts Dundas

Poetry and art copyright © the author and the artist, respectively

Artwalk POETRY and ART



Bank Swallows Come Back to Milton
by Sheila Grace Campbell


BANK SWALLOWS

by Jeff Seffinga

We blasted stone to build our homes and roads
out of the hillside, left a deep slash shining
bleak and unnatural in the landscape’s heart.

But time can alter so much. Soil slowly forms
in cracks and hollows; as vegetation takes root
eroding rock becomes a foundation for new life.

Now bank swallows, evicted from the creek side
where our houses rise, have found room wild enough
to shelter nests constructed with clay imported

from that same creek bank. Their new community
arises out of destruction. For so it goes:
the perseverance of mankind and of swallows.



Artwalk III, #6
 

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