Many of you have seen flocks of birds or schools of
minnows acting as if they were guided by a common intelligence, turning
together, stopping together. Here is a poem by Debra Nystrom that
beautifully describes a flight of swallows returning to their nests, acting
as if they were of one mind. Notice how she extends the description to
comment on the way human behavior differs from that of the birds.
Cliff Swallows
— Missouri Breaks
Is it some turn of wind that funnels them all down at once, or is it their own voices netting to bring them in — the roll and churr of hundreds searing through river light and cliff dust, each to its precise mud nest on the face —
none of our own isolate groping, wishing need could be sent so unerringly to solace. But this silk-skein flashing is like heaven brought down: not to meet ground or water — to enter the riven earth and disappear.
Reprinted from Torn Sky, Sarabande Books, 2004, by permission of the poet.
Copyright © 2004 by Debra Nystrom, an associate professor of English
at the University of Virginia. This weekly column is supported by The
Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English
at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept
unsolicited poetry.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2005.
