billing and cooing

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Barn swallows are active.

Like most swallows you rarely see them perched, they're built for flight. That's why I was somewhat surprised to find this pair planted on terra firma, chatting, getting to know one another. But, there's courtship going on here. Billing and cooing. There was perhaps an exchange of food. A pair bond is being formed.

Humans would call it love, a bonding of two souls. Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran writes, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

With barn swallows it's similar but somehow different. Perhaps more utilitarian but no less poetic.

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