EXPLORATION // Waves of Migration
The Rebirth of Wonder
by Anisa George
EXCERPT //
They’re going to tear down the Masonic temple in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania—my hometown. I’ve never had much interest in the temple, being a woman and all. The fraternity has stood silently, withholding its secrets from me and most of the inhabitants of Bethlehem, since 1926. I expect most people won’t miss it—not the architecture buffs or the wedding planners, not even the fraternity of Masons themselves. Black mold deterred many from entering long before the building was sold.
The only ones who might miss the Bethlehem Masonic Center are the ones who regularly inhabit it in spring and fall—members of Chaetura pelagica, otherwise known as chimney swifts. For a few months a year, the temple exhales and inhales these small, soot-colored migrants, who emerge and submerge in time with the sun, sequestering themselves within the chimney at dusk and alighting again in the bruised crack of dawn.
It was Jennie Gilrain who brought them to my attention—a friend and fourth-grade teacher at Freemansburg Elementary School. She tells me she’s the “swift-whisperer,” though her smile is quite Cheshire-like, and her uproarious way of laughing is most likely alarming to birds. Before Jennie fell in love with swifts, she was simply a woman who liked to walk. Her twilight wanderings led her to the Masonic lodge, where she was astonished to discover the swifts disappearing by the thousands into a three-story chimney.
Chimney swifts are one of the only swifts that live east of the Rocky Mountains. Though they don’t sport any eye-catching colors, or bring forth the dawn with virtuosic song, and though they are often unflatteringly described as a cigar with wings, Jennie told me their descent into the chimney was a must-see affair, a cyclone of sublime and indescribable beauty. She told me it was as if they painted the air.
I remember it was cold on the first night I tried to see them. I had to cajole the two four-year-olds under my charge to bundle up and drive out to Bethlehem. Jennie offered us a blanket when we arrived, but it was 2020, and I was too worried about COVID contamination to take it. By the time sunset began, I was praying the swifts would deliver a truly miraculous display. It had been maddening getting the kids outside in appropriate jackets and hats. The last thing I wanted was—“See, mom! See?! We should have just stayed home.”
I could tell Jennie was worried too because she kept imploring us to wait a little longer—“Wait, just wait. They’ll be here.” But after a half-hour of staring at the chimney top in the descending dark, with the kids beginning to shiver, it was clear we’d missed it. The migration was done, and the swifts were well on their way to Bogotá, Lima, or some other South American retreat. They’d left us to winter, the pandemic, and a sky full of nothing.
In a last-ditch attempt to render the excursion a victory, I jumped up and proclaimed, “We’ll just have to be the swifts ourselves,” and started running loop-de-loops around the parking lot with my arms outstretched. The kids stared at me a moment, nonplussed, considering whether this was really a game worth playing. I soared on, dropping to a low squat and circling my arms in a wide hoop. “FLY INTO MY CHIMNEY!” I yelled, shaking my arm-hoop at them urgently. “QUICK, IT’S GETTING DARK! A HAWK MIGHT GET YOU!” At this last appeal, the kids both sprang to their feet and flew full speed into my chimney-embrace.
When I heard the building was scheduled for demolition, my heart sank. I remembered the children, full of glee, running headlong into my arms like swifts. It was as if I had failed to catch them, as if the moment before I embraced them they suddenly evaporated. //
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