This poem started with seeing an empty nest in a ruined building in the forest up the hill from where I live. It was autumn, the swallows that had built it had gone, and I was struck by the sheer improbability of it all, the debris of their efforts here in Scotland, and their continued life, and the lives of their fledglings, on the other side of the planet.

How All Our Making’s Made

The swallows had long gone south again
down their old ley lines when I found their nest tight
against the transom of the byre door. Bound
together: grass, dross, feathers, shit, perched light
as light on the top shelf out of harm’s way
while on a different continent the code
for its design, location, usage, lay
lodged deep in a bird’s brain, an unknown lode.
Such rough perfection.
What was found, hidden
neatly within the double helix called
deoxyribonucleic acid
wasn’t just why eyes are blue: warrens, walled
cities, motorways lie there. Its charmed braid
transmits and stores how all our making’s made.