The Sky Is Still Full of Swallows
Jennifer Kearns | Poetry, Spring 2025
The only reason the girl didn’t cry when she found the swallow
In the dirt by the doorstep still alive beneath black ants already teeming
Was that the sky is still full of swallows there are so many
What does it matter to lose just one or two
And on she goes soon forgetting quick to take her place
By the sea. She springs back like a twig
Of one of the bushes she brushes past on her way
That smell so warm and intimate in the early sun.
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Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“Loss and change are motifs that keep turning up in my writing, whether I like it or not. Small turning points, larger ones, recorded in poems- like fossils. Older poems are as distant as a collection of fossils. But positioned as part of a group or a series, I see the family connection. These poems were written in a similar time frame. They start in one place and end up in another. Or, at least point towards something new. They are a healthy reminder (for me, at least) that nothing stays put.”
Jennifer Kearns is an Irish interpreter, mother of twins, currently living in Vienna, Austria.
The Sky Is Still Full of Swallows
Jennifer Kearns | Poetry, Spring 2025
The only reason the girl didn’t cry when she found the swallow
In the dirt by the doorstep still alive beneath black ants already teeming
Was that the sky is still full of swallows there are so many
What does it matter to lose just one or two
And on she goes soon forgetting quick to take her place
By the sea. She springs back like a twig
Of one of the bushes she brushes past on her way
That smell so warm and intimate in the early sun.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“Loss and change are motifs that keep turning up in my writing, whether I like it or not. Small turning points, larger ones, recorded in poems- like fossils. Older poems are as distant as a collection of fossils. But positioned as part of a group or a series, I see the family connection. These poems were written in a similar time frame. They start in one place and end up in another. Or, at least point towards something new. They are a healthy reminder (for me, at least) that nothing stays put.”
Jennifer Kearns is an Irish interpreter, mother of twins, currently living in Vienna, Austria.
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