Not a seventeen syllable type of town

One of the meanders I took in the past few weeks:

Highway 395 drops south out of Pendleton Oregon and then rolls and climbs and skirts mountains, rivers, and trees, farms and high desert as it moves into Central Oregon. It has been many, many (can we get one more, many? Amen!) years since I was out here. Near so many places we traveled or cut through. As I was getting close to the road that ran to Ukiah, I nearly took a detour to see Ukiah again. One day (in that land of many years ago) I was moving road signs for Dad and as I sat in the pick-up, I noticed the sign telling you how far Ukiah is, but it was in the rearview mirror and it said haikU. And I was thinking today, Ukiah is not a seventeen-syllable type of town, but falls in the English language -ku blend, a very brief nugget of beauty that does not need seventeen syllables to exist.

And now:

Love poem with swallows

The swallows swoop toward the willow, low over the water
and then the female lands, waits, sings a chirpy come hither.

The male dives and hovers over her, she spreads her wings
and welcomes him again and again she waits while he rises
his wings slashing. Their heads meet briefly with each return.

It’s then I miss you, as he dives and returns,
while she opens her arms, again and again.