Turtle and the Swallow is a story about loss, and frustration and renewal.
When we first meet Turtle, he is a teacher, well into his years. Though his position in the community is in no doubt, he has grown to lament his condition, increasing consumed by the feeling that his efforts are to no avail. For no matter how he consuls his students, they still seem unable to escape the harsh realities of their environment, and many are lost to predators and famine and the peril of winter.
His own teacher attempts to shift his perspective; but it is the encounter with a stranger, a Swallow, and witnessing the magnificent ballet of her flights over the pond that brings him out of his melancholy. He cautiously engages her and discovers something of her life, that she has come to the pond as a refugee fleeing the devastation of a fire.
A conversation about the importance of gifts ensues, with Turtle complimenting Swallow on the humility with which she carries hers, and swallow chiding Turtle for the way he has come to ignore the value of his own.
In the end, Swallow returns to her fold, and Turtle comes back into himself, renewed to continue his work, by the celebration of life that he has experienced.
