I’ve been reading the essays of E.B. White. Here are some lines from an essay entitled “Home-Coming.”
“Swallows, I have noticed, never use any feather but a white one in their nest-building, and they always leave a lot of it showing, which makes me believe that that they are interested not in the feather’s insulating power but in its reflecting power, so that when they skim into the dark barn from the bright outdoors they will have a beacon to steer by.”
I love so many words from these lines: swallow, feather, dark barn, bright outdoors.
But I think I love the word “beacon” most of all.
It’s what we all want, isn’t it?
A light (a reflecting power) that allows us to find our way home.

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