draft: east cliff

10th august 2002:

Like an Athenasius Kircher instrument, the five swiftlets lined up atop a ceiling boss in the least-broken aisle of that too-broken glory, minute on minute, as father- and mother-swift red-arrowed back through the window-slots, turning tail and catching the breeze to reach them; five mouths in concert, yellow-rimmed repositories for air-plucked never-ending lunch. And for me, sitting on old, salt-wind-grazed stones that carry the shape imposed by a half-thousand years, seeing that life finds places to thrive, even in the ruins left by those who would destroy it.