congratulations yael and jc

Variation on the Word Sleep

by Margaret Atwood 

I would like to watch you sleeping, 
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you, 
sleeping. I would like to sleep 
with you, to enter 
your sleep as its smooth dark wave 
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent 
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves 
with its watery sun & three moons 
towards the cave where you must descend, 
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver 
branch, the small white flower, the one 
word that will protect you 
from the grief at the center 
of your dream, from the grief 
at the center. I would like to follow 
you up the long stairway 
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands 
to where your body lies 
beside me, and you enter 
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

three songs for a day

peru photos, a lesson in compassion

    my host father, don magno, lights the oven to make bread

    the view from the bus, lima to huaraz

  frankel and keneth (my sweet-eyed godson) eat breakfast

as i promised, here are a few more photographs of my trip to peru.  these are some of the folks that i lived with for two years.  they are a bit shy at first--my first time meeting them i was convinced that they didn't like me because no one talked or smiled--but once you get to know them they are kind, generous, and really funny.  they supported me through some of the most difficult times in my life and continue to teach me a lot. they don't teach so much through their words--as i said, they can be a little quiet--but more through their example of how to live a simple life with integrity and joy.

i think of them now as i move through my massive to-do list and loaded calendar.  it can pretty hard to connect those worlds.  in peru, most days are about the same.  my host mom serves pretty much the same lunch of potatoes and rice around 1pm to the same people almost every day.  while they eat, people really don't talk that much  to each other because there just isn't too much to report on most of the time.  that lifestyle is really grounding and comforting in ways, but the truth is that i wouldn't trade it for the busyness of my life (whether or not my host family would trade for mine is a whole other question that i've thought a lot about and still can't answer).  i love living in the city and chatting it up with lots of people and never knowing what exactly is going to happen.

but the hard part is when i don't realize it's too much.  last week was one of those weeks.  in addition to my normal work, adam and i were getting ready for our housewarming party and my dad had surgery and my grandmother is still not doing so well and my car maintenance light went on and etc etc.  it was so much that i forgot to read my calendar and realize that i had a weekday afternoon photo shoot in mclean to take holiday card photographs.  i am usually really good at managing my schedule and being on time, so my stomach really dropped when my google alert went off, telling me i had exactly ten minutes to make it to virginia. oh yes, at that point my car was still waiting for me in the shop.

i called my client to see if we could reschedule and found out that she was leaving early the next morning and wouldn't be back until much later in the month.  if we were going to get her the photographs she wanted, it would have to be now.  it was 3:40pm at this point and i quickly did some math in my head to see if i could make it.  it would take me at least 20 minutes to ride my bike to brookland and pick up my car.  from there i could maaaaaybe get to virginia before the sunset.  because it didn't seem like there was another choice, i told her i would try.

my plan seemed to be working until i hit the worst traffic i've ever seen on I-395.  the cars stretched out in snaking lines across every lane and i couldn't see anything letting up ahead.  going under the tunnel, i was nervous but still optimistic. by the time i emerged to see the sun almost dipping to horizon, i just had to give up.  i called my client to tell her we couldn't do the shoot.  she was understandably upset and nothing i could say really made anything feel better at that point.  i pulled off at the next exit, drove home and did what any yoga teacher would do in such a situation:  i had a good cry, made a big bowl of popcorn and watched episodes of "parks and rec" until i could face the world again.

it was a really bad-feeling afternoon that i couldn't make better.  i felt like i failed as a professional which is tied to many parts of my self-esteem.  from experience, i know that it can be so easy to go in for the emotional kill during these vulnerable moments and make it mean something big about who i am.  yet, even through my tears, i was determined to practice a bit of what i preach.  of course, i fell apart a little bit, but i did it with some kind of consciousness, meaning i worked hard not to kick myself when i was down.  i breathed, i talked about it to adam and even during yoga, and i remembered the lessons of this book, which reminds me again and again that being human, not perfect is the goal. as much as it sucked, i got through it and emerged still feeling pretty ok about myself.

this lesson really made some sense when i showed up the next morning to a cpr training that i organized for my yoga studio.  we were set to start at 9am and by 9:20am all 13 yoga instructors were there with no sign of our cpr instructor.  i called the training center only to be told that the trainer had completely forgotten about our appointment and would be late.  when he arrived, an hour and 15 minutes later,  i was way more understanding than i would have been otherwise.  because i had been tolerant with myself, i could also extend that to another person who was having a bad day.  in that moment, the perfect storm of the past two days fit together like puzzle pieces and i breathed a sigh of relief.  no one, no where, has it all figured out and forgiving ourselves for that is the best work we can do.

happy november!  it amazes me how quickly these past few weeks have gone by.  peru was a really special trip for me.  so special that i've been at a loss for words as to how to talk about it, let along write about it any kind of pretty way. also, due to an influx of photography work (which i am always so grateful for), i haven't had time to edit the photographs.

but this voyage deserves to be celebrated in any way that i know how, which means i have to follow my own advice and start small.  before running out the door this morning, i pulled what i think could be my favorite photograph of the trip from my hard drive.  it's taken in the town where i did the peace corps, a tiny village called mazac.  it's at yolanda and don juan's house, on the first day of november, a day when peruvians honor the ones who have died in their family by making bread. i am not quite sure why they do this, but everyone does.  extended families join together in the homes of those who have outdoor brick ovens and they spend the day turning sticky dough worked through with lard--bought from a family down the hill--into lots and lots of bread.

you can see my friend mary on one side, giggling at me taking a photograph and one of my godson's kevin, giggling at mary giggling.  they are laughing because i think the sheep passing through is photo-worthy while they think it's something that happens twice a day, like clockwork.  this happened late morning on the day i left, again, after five days of visiting.  during these days i slept in my old room, walked back and forth from town to the village, and distributed a suitcase of trinkets from the states amongst the different families.  my other godson, kenneth, followed me around wherever i went, including to the top of the nearby hill.  from there we looked out at the village and beyond, and it felt like the wind was hungry enough to blow us away.

they told mama ticu, the grandma matriarch of them all, that i was leaving and she answered me in quechua, i think about how i was going to stay there and build my own house.  i laugh and answer "aumi, aumi. allpa allim." (yes, yes. very good). it's always a tempting offer to me. being there makes me realize that there is always something missing in the states and as much as i hate parts of being there, i love it and need it and will spend forever seeking it out.  i hope my presence there offers some kind of balance for them as well.

about an hour later we ate lunch. in their black-walled kitchen, twelve people of every age sat quietly eating big bowls of cilantro-laced rice with chicken.  once that bowl was finished, it was filled again with a smokey soup of peas and scallions. one them was me--long-boned, smiling, perpetually out of place.  i ate past the point of fullness and felt tremendously grateful to be there with them. it felt like proof that there is such a thing as returning and finding that intersection point between two different worlds, that bigness in the middle of things. to me it's a buoy, holding me up as i travel the line back and forth, back and forth, as often as i can.

***

of course there is so much more, but sharing that is a start.  i'm happy to report that since coming home i have felt grounded and content, despite the changing winds of vata all around us.  (tip: if you are feeling imbalanced by the cold, dry change in season right now, then you can balance yourself with a warming sesame oil massage, eating more ghee, and by going to bed and getting up at the same time everday).  also, because the energy of gratitude is so wonderfully balancing, enjoy your thanksgiving break to the max.  i'll leave you with this song from the magnetic fields (that adam and i saw play very well, as they always do, at 6th and i synagogue last night).

hello all! i am back from the jungle (10 beautiful, uncomfortable, deep days which i will go into later) and living it up in the small mountain town where i did the peace corps.  since i dont have time to write now (or access to all the punctuation i desire on the spanish keyboard), i thought i would post an article that i wrote at the end of my service for our peace corps newsletter that still sums up a lot of what it means for me to be here.  enjoy and know that i am sending you love, especially all my folks dealing with sandy on the east coat.

···


The Walk Home (an essay for the Peace Corps Peru magazine)

Two years ago, I was packing up my one backpack and purple suitcase with enough
socks and underwear to last me for two years, when a package arrived from a good friend
and past traveling partner. She wished me good luck in my service and included a quote
from the Sufi poet Rumi that goes: “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone
for others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will
understand the passage…” It was a tender time when I couldn’t predict the future, and
these words gave me faith that I was going to create something uniquely my own. Now
as my service comes to an end, I’m sharing my own particular myth, because I believe
shared experience is one of the most powerful forms of comfort in times of both joy and
pain. So here is my myth, my uncomplicated version of a very complicated two years of
Peace Corps service.

To simplify a bit, I want to use two analogies. The first one is in the shape of a path.
After four months of living in the bigger city where I was placed, I decided that I wanted
to live in a smaller town while continuing to work with my original counterpart. I moved
out to a casario and surprisingly, found that what excited me most about the change
was my thirty-minute hike up and down the mountain each day. From the city, the path
goes through a small housing division, crosses a bridge, and up a steep hill. From the top
of this hill you can see all of the eucalyptus trees filling the quebrada and the random
dotting of my neighbors’ cows out to graze. I walked this path in rain, sunshine, slopping
through fresh mud, flirting with shy kids, yelling at territorial dogs, and racing the
encroaching dusk to arrive home before complete darkness fell. It gave me a chance to
walk and converse with my neighbors, and also to reflect on my experience.

Things change in this life, sometimes slowly and sometimes quite suddenly. In my two
years here a lot has happened. I stopped working with my counterpart, found strings of
other opportunities, forged new friendships. I abandoned some friendships, fell in love,
had my heart broken. I missed home, felt disconnected from home. I was alone, people
visited. I was a failure; I was a smashing success. The emotion was different each time I
walked home, but the path never changed. It was humble when I was proud. It was solid
when I was shaky. In fact, I could leave the city in tears and just the action of walking
home could soothe me back to myself.

As Peace Corps Volunteers, you are rarely going to have the same mixture of emotions
twice. You are going to have to accept failure even though we were all raised to
constantly succeed. It’s going to be hard at times. My advice is to find a path that is
sturdy and constant and to walk it often. Find whatever it is that gives you comfort,
because we should never forget that being here is just as difficult as the job slogan
promises.

Take comfort from the fact that I have never known a bad PCV. Everyone does it her
own way and everyone has changed his community for the better in some way. Take
comfort from there being no food so bad that aji, limon, and canchita cannot make it
better. Take comfort in playing volleyball with the kids and in people laughing at your
jokes. Take comfort in the natural beauty that surrounds your home. Take comfort from
people in your community who are grateful for your presence, but know that at times
there are no words to say thank you, no matter what language you are speaking.

The second analogy is an earthquake. For the past two years I have lived on top of one
of the biggest fault lines in the world. The first fact I ever heard about my site was that it
was rebuilt after being buried under a torrential mudslide caused by the 1970 earthquake.
So, naturally, I spent some quiet nights in bed thinking about what it would be like when
the ground started shaking again and what it might sound like to hear it echoing through
the valley. I thought about where I would run and if I would have time to put on shoes. I
waited for that rumble that meant something huge and unchangeable was rushing toward
me. Of course, nothing came.

I think I can relate this back to my own growth as well. Before I left the States, maybe
even as I was reading my friend’s letter, I was planning on coming back a changed
person. I was ready to have a defining experience that would give my service meaning
and prove that I had metamorphsized into a better, more selfless person. Two years later
I am still here and shivering to stay warm at night and very definitely still the person that
I was when came here, only a bit stronger and with a larger world view. Right now, I see
that I never needed to change. I just needed to see myself for who I really was, outside of
my culture and my comfort zones.

I realize now that grand experiences and revelations rarely announce themselves so
dramatically. Instead life and learning and growth happen slowly and it’s only after a
period of time that they add up enough to be noticed. All of these sweet exchanges and
small triumphs, the stuff you can’t find a place for on your quarterly report yet know are
important somehow, form together and give your service meaning. I now see life to be
more of a system of cycles dotted through with funny occurrences, rather than a life that I
am building from the bottom up.

It seems to me that the wider my eyes are open to the realities of this world, the less
sure I am of everything. I think that is okay. The ones who are quick to answer usually
don’t know that much. I’m satisfied to take a curiosity in it all and notice all the beauty
that I can. It’s been two years living in the mountains through happy and sad times and
great friendships and lots of time to think about things. Yet I can’t separate out very
much. All I can say is that it has been a lot of experience. As the poet Rilke writes, “Oh
not because happiness exists, that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss, but
because truly being here is so much, because everything here apparently needs us, this
feeling world, which in some strange way keeps calling us.”

Life called, I answered, or so that old Peace Corps myth goes. And now it’s calling again.
Although I’ve spent many days wondering what it would feel like to really leave, I never
thought this time would actually come. I’m walking home and the path is swallowing
itself up behind me and the earth is quietly rumbling all around. I am changed and I am
myself and all I can say is thank you for everything.

heather gets hitched

i took these photographs at my friend heather and her new husband mike's spectacular wedding in boone, nc.  despite a rainy weekend and some other set-backs (the guests ate their wedding cheesecake before they could cut it!), it was such a special time.  the whole day felt full-on north carolina.  the woodsy cabins, live bluegrass, mismatched china, and buffalo steak felt so representative of the couple's laid back style.  i've known heather for years, but it was my first time meeting mike.  however, right away i felt that truly special love between them. it inspired me and continues to as i write this.

it's funny because i met heather as i was leaving the peace corps.  she is a good friend my pcv friend amanda and decided to join us for our last hurrah trip through the peruvian jungle.  i didn't know heather very well when i boarded a amazon cargo boat and hung up my hammock next to hers.  however, after five days on this boat, baking under the amazon sun and coming up with every trick we knew to keep from going insane, i swore i had known her for years.  she is a good lady who can handle life and i'm happy to know her.

it feels full circle that i photograph her wedding just as i am leaving for another trip through the amazon.  i'll probably avoid the jungle boat travel this time, but i will spend 10 days in the central amazon at a retreat.  i'll be studying with a great shaman, far from electronic life and deep within myself.  i've been preparing my body and mind for six weeks now, keeping a diet that doesn't allow a lot of the things i like to eat and taking a good, long look at where i am in life.  the answers that keep coming to me are that 1) life is ridiculously good and 2) there is still so much more to learn.  so i'm packing light, trying to keep expectations at bay, and opening my arms to a new adventure.

i'll also be visiting the town where i did peace corps, kissing my godson a lot, eating many potatoes, watching the sunset over the mountains, traveling with another good rpcv friend, laura, walking along the malecon in lima, riding buses, speaking mediocre spanish, taking quite a few photographs (peru is my favorite subject) and most likely finding myself in some hilarious situations.

since my first time traveling there seven years ago, i know that peru is deeply important to my life.  it's a country that has opened up my eyes and shown me who i really am.  it's the natural beauty and the humanity of the people and culture of mysticism and something else that i can't quite name.  this is my sixth time going back and i don't think i'm ever going to be done.  each time i go i am visiting a part of myself that is vital, powerful and needs attention.  i feel it upon landing in the airport, the humidity, the impatient foot tapping and the voice that goes, "oh there you are..."

so i'm ridiculously excited to go and also a little sad to leave adam and my students and this nice, comfortable life i have here.  i feel nothing but support from everyone in going on this trip and that makes the voyage from here to there so much easier.  it's good to go and it'll be good to come back and share how to love it all even more.  i hope to post here after the retreat and in the meantime, i'll be thinking about you.

same love

i like this video a lot (powerful, visually beautiful, made me cry in between appointments on a busy saturday afternoon) and macklemore and ryan lewis's new album which you can stream on npr for a few more days.

check out joel's new mural

this is joel.  we lived together for four happy years in the group house on u st.  when i moved in with adam, he moved to nyc to paint murals up north.  this is his first one he's made since settling in.  as usual, i think it's brilliant. 

In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again

Navajo Prayer

snippet of grizzly bear

i didn't take this video, but it looks just as magical as it was last night in dc.   

and here is the full version of the song.  it's my favorite from their new album shields. 

this is the yoga i believe in

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

south dakota and softness when it's hard

south dakota is such a land of wonders.  we went in august to visit one of adam's good friends who is a lutheran pastor and lives outside of sioux falls with his family in an old farm house.  then we stayed on for a couple of extra days to drive for hundreds of miles and see the sights out west.  i didn't have a lot of expectations for what our trip would be and so i was extra blown-away but this nothern midwestern paradise.  i hope these photographs do it some kind of justice.

now i've been back for the past two weeks and finding my ground before another month of wedding travel and then PERU in october.  the time at home has been a sweet pause in the midst of movement that has yielded getting our house space together, a visit from my lovely friend gillian, and a few more episodes of friday night lights.

also, i got a new backpack.  this may seem small but my old one was digging into my shoulders and i spent a long time resisting buying a new one.  it's nothing fancy but has nice padded straps and many pockets to fill with things.  as i search for more and more ways to care for myself, i have filled it with: a water bottle, a book, a resuable spork, my npr fold up grocery bag, photographs that i will give to my friend the next time i see her (i've already forgotten three times), lip gloss and lip stick so that i am prepared for whatever the event, an extra hair elastic, essential oil and a spiritual-kinda book for teaching, a ziplock bag for my phone in case it rains,  my headphones, two tampons, a pen, and my badges for my classes at the DOJ and IMF.

again, it's nothing glamorous, but having everything that i may need all bundled together and waiting for me when i walk out of the door to teach each day makes me feel really sane.  i've noticed that my leaving the house is much more zen-like, which leads to a calmer bike ride and more grounded teaching, nicer evenings with adam, etc.  it's a small thing but it's seeming to work in the grand scheme.

however, i continue to remind myself that having a nice, organized backpack is not a shield. it's always my temptation to believe that having everything together--a clean house, an organized inbox, all of my boxes checked off--will somehow protect me from life going awry.  when my house was broken into this last spring, i had actually spent the whole day at spa world.  i was bathed and scrubbed and uber-relaxed and as i drove back into dc, i kept telling myself that everything was taken care of, everything was pretty much perfect.  then i walked into my front door and saw quite the opposite.

i mean, it's life.  we can't ever stop it from coming and challenging us and if we try, we only experience more pain.  as brene brown reminds us in her latest ted talk, we all struggle, even the professionals who help us to get through our struggles.  and if you are like me, you might fool yourself into thinking that if you could be just a little more perfect, then you could avoid the hard parts somehow. but really the only way out of the struggle is to let go, allow it's current to throw us around, and remember that suffering is just part of being human.

so instead, when i look at my new red backpack, i am trying to see it as a balm.  it's something to put upon my wounds caused by the courageous art of everyday living.  it's like a little first aid kit for the spirit--something to remind me that i am always worthy of care, especially by the person who knows how to do it best--the lovely me.

makes me happy

above everything

my beautiful yoga friend rosemary wanted some photographs of her sweet family before the birth of her second son.  we met two weekends ago at rock creek park and by now baby miles is fully in this world.  ah life, you get me every time. 

and i love this poem by david ignatow:

Above Everything

I wished for death often
but now that I am at its door
I have changed my mind about the world.
It should go on; it is beautiful,
even as a dream, filled with water and seed,
plants and animals, others like myself,
ships and buildings and messages
filling the air -- a beauty,
if ever I have seen one.
In the next world, should I remember
this one, I will praise it
above everything.

costa rica sunshine

doubling down on happiness

 i'm back from costa rica.  predictably, it was wonderful.  like it was more wonderful than last year--which was pretty darn great--and filled me with a deep sense of hope about life.  the reasons for that could be that it's such a nice retreat center and the people who came were so open and  the gift of taking a big time-out from life to stare out at the sea from a hammock. or maybe it was the food--all organic, local and prepared con mucho amor--that had me wondering if i was going to adjust to living back in the states again.  i've been joking with adam that he was going to have to cut up fresh fruit for me every morning for a week so i wouldn't be too shocked on the realities of living in the real world.  he seems to think i am kidding about that...

but home is good.  today i mapped out photo albums, planted window boxes with arugula and scallion seeds, met a dear friend for thai food and had the most surprisingly fast experience of getting my car inspected. i love it here and hope that every time i leave it's so that i can come back to my real life with more joy and hope and love to share.  so in that spirit, i choose this photograph of a the view from my plane ride from houston to washington, dc.  i spent the whole week freaking out about the beautiful sunsets that we saw from the yoga deck and thought about how i never see anything like that back in the states.  and then i saw the most ridiculously beautiful one in the home stretch of my massive travel--probably somewhere above oklahoma.  i love it!  it was the perfect reminder to me that we are all living in paradise, we all walking in beauty.  we just have to pay attention and call a thing by it's proper name.


i started my first day back in dc with this ridiculous grin on my face, wanting to share the love with everyone.  then in the afternoon, someone innocently said something that challenged me and my big bad ego. it was small but big enough that i stopped smiling and started worrying. when i realized what i was doing, the phrase that came into my mind was that i had to "double down on my happiness."  i'm not a gambler and don't even know if i am using that in that in any kind of right way.  what i mean though, is that if we are ever lucky enough to find what we are looking for, then we have to work extra hard to keep it up.  this means giving more when we start to feel stinginess invade our sense of generosity and loving deeper when the person we care about is really challenging us.  it's about paying attention, having intention and again and again, choosing who we want to be.

because it's precious--our lives and what we choose to do with them--and if we are lucky enough to know how to pay attention then we have a responsibility to keep trying for what we really want.   deep down i believe that what we all want is to access our own hearts and know that we really belong here in a meaningful way.  i've felt that a few times in my life and it's so big and whole that i know i'll spend the rest of my days headed in that direction.  and you too? maybe it takes you a week away doing yoga in the jungle to get there or maybe your life dictates that your own sense of inspiration must be found in the walk home from work each day.  regardless, know that i am there too, looking up into that sweet night sky, savoring the bigness that's there.

for a sunny monday morning...

these songs have been on my yoga playlist (and in my head) this past week.

a great instruction manual on how to say no.

love this quote from arundhati roy:

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."

stuff i like

 

the pool at dumbarton oaks (thanks for bringing us there lili, it felt like a dream)

i just dropped off adam at the metro for his annual conference in jacksonville and suddenly i have a slower week and a condo of one's own.   a part of me wants to start in on my to-do list of swiffering and finance organizing, but first i need a little time to savor a few of the lovely things that have sustained me during this past month of moving, power outages, and the art of co-habitation (which is going really well so far--i'm feeling what it means to be part of a team).


first, i must appreciate this breakfast at teaism that was the only thing i wanted to eat when it was 102 degrees and we were on our third day without power.  i came in a sweaty mess and left feeling human again.  it's in these moments that i truly understand the different levels of nourishment.


orchids at johnston's, the plant store where adam likes to go...a lot.  it's been fun having his green thumb around.



isn't this installation art at dumbarton oaks incredible?  my friends marcie and lili helped to hand tie those glass beads.  go see it if you are in dc.


i like these people a lot.


we spent our 4th of july at tricia's house, eating incredible indonesian food (happy birthday sylvia!) and watching the fireworks from the rooftop.  all of the shadowy turrets on either side made me feel like we were in mary poppins. 

and of course our new place is inspiring me! we got our couch on sunday and now it really feels like a home.  all we are missing now is a dog....

also:
beautiful cooking philosophies.  they feel a lot like mine.  we've been having some fun meals of thrown-together leftovers like panzanella with avocado and fresh corn, kimchi spring rolls, fresh mango sprinkled with cardamon for breakfast.  although i will endlessly love my roommates,  i don't miss the group house fridge with it's broken handle at all.  i've really moved up in the kitchen world.

i spent a half-hour giggling last night at these hilariously inappropriate test responses. 

i like this poem by wendell berry a lot too:

THE LAW THAT MARRIES ALL THINGS
1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.
The rain is free
only in falling.
The water is free only
in its gathering together,
in its downward courses,
in its rising into the air.
2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.
3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.
It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.
4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.
5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows.
Meet me, meet me,
the redbird sings,
here here here here.