Summer ev’ning in the meadow,
light and warm the breeze,
tall the grasses,
smell of hay.
Swallows flitting light and fast,
this and that way,
looks like play,
but it’s serious survival,
catching bugs to last all night!
They throw themselves up to the trees,
sailing down again and again,
white bellies flashing light,
with fast, elegant flying.
I could spend the last hours of my life,
watching the swift, skillful flying
of swallows over the meadow:
This incredible lightness of being!
Imke Zimmermann