Swift

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Bird of delight

Screaming joy and soaring on the updrift

Predicting sun and spring and clement weather

Building nests of clay and filling them with yellow beaks

Open for insects and feed.

Fast as lightning the black wings arch through warm air

Its tail flickers and the world changes.

What aspirations needs a bird?

Elegant in black and white

It’s only goal is the next meal,

The next flight.

Sky-high ecstasy

Has simple expressions

 

Bird of sorrow.

High in the evening sky

The black birds circle,

Crying out their grief.

And the watcher,

The listener

Shudders.

Is this an omen of pain?

It may just be darkness coming.

But, more than that,

At the source is a manifestation

Collective and dire:

A premonition

Of loss

 

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© HMH, 2018

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