Poetry Sunday: Swifts by Anne Stevenson

One of my favorite late afternoon spring and summer activities from childhood even until the present day has been watching the Chimney Swifts as they crisscross the sky over my neighborhood. "Sky-scythers" and "earth-skimmers" traveling at two hundred miles an hour and cutting the air with their shrieks, they are marvels of Nature's engineering. Was there ever a creature that was more aptly named?

Swifts

by Anne Stevenson

Spring comes little, a little. All April it rains.

The new leaves stick in their fists; new ferns still fiddleheads.

But one day the swifts are back. Face to the sun like a child

You shout, 'The swifts are back!'

Sure enough, bolt nocks bow to carry one sky-scyther

Two hundred miles an hour across fullblown windfields.

Swereee swereee. Another. And another.

It's the cut air falling in shrieks on our chimneys and roofs.

The next day, a fleet of high crosses cruises in ether.

These are the air pilgrims, pilots of air rivers.

But a shift of wing, and they're earth-skimmers, daggers

Skilful in guiding the throw of themselves away from themselves.

Quick flutter, a scimitar upsweep, out of danger of touch, for

Earth is forbidden to them, water's forbidden to them,

All air and fire, little owlish ascetics, they outfly storms,

They rush to the pillars of altitude, the thermal fountains.

Here is a legend of swifts, a parable —

When the Great Raven bent over earth to create the birds,

The swifts were ungrateful. They were small muddy things

Like shoes, with long legs and short wings,

So they took themselves off to the mountains to sulk.

And they stayed there. 'Well,' said the Raven, after years of this,

'I will give you the sky. You can have the whole sky

On condition that you give up rest.'

'Yes, yes,' screamed the swifts, 'We abhor rest.

We detest the filth of growth, the sweat of sleep,

Soft nests in the wet fields, slimehold of worms.

Let us be free, be air!'

So the Raven took their legs and bound them into their bodies.

He bent their wings like boomerangs, honed them like knives.

He streamlined their feathers and stripped them of velvet.

Then he released them, Never to Return

Inscribed on their feet and wings. And so

We have swifts, though in reality, not parables but

Bolts in the world's need: swift

Swifts, not in punishment, not in ecstasy, simply

Sleepers over oceans in the mill of the world's breathing.

The grace to say they live in another firmament.

A way to say the miracle will not occur,

And watch the miracle.

This week in birds - #632

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The aptly named Western Kingbird is found throughout much of the western United States and southern Canada. It is a large member of the flycatcher family, somewhat bigger than its counterpart, the Eastern Kingbird. It winters in southern Mexico and Central America and has recently expanded its winter range into southern Florida. A resident of grasslands and scrublands, it can also be found in open urban and suburban areas and its population is increasing. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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Donald Trump celebrated Earth Day as only he would by firing hundreds of workers at the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Does life on Earth owe its origins to an asteroid?

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The stupidity is truly astounding. The new administration in Washington is bent on expanding coal mining while at the same time imposing cuts to the agencies that are charged with ensuring miner health and safety.

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The Sonic Heritage project will preserve a collection of 270 sounds from 68 countries.

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We think of the seasons as numbering four but Japan recognizes 72 microseasons.

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Right leaning influencers now dominate digital media and an analysis found that eight of the ten most popular shows have spread false or misleading information about climate change.

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Spring migration is just hitting its peak in the South and is beginning to pick up farther north.

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Rising temperatures are causing Earth's glaciers to melt and that could trigger even greater climate mayhem for the planet.

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The U.S. is backsliding on air quality measures and nearly half of its residents now live in places that get failing grades on air pollution.

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Artificial intelligence may drive a surge in demand for fossil fuels, thus prolonging the fossil fuel era.

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Many of the world's coral reefs have been hit by the worst bleaching event on record.

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Our closest cousins in Nature, the bonobos, live in a matriarchal society.

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Purple honey? In the Sandhills region of North Carolina, that is a thing.

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In a coastal New England town, this innocent looking Pileated Woodpecker is creating quite a bit of havoc.

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The world is full of weird and wonderful creatures, but this "bone collector" caterpillar may be one of the weirdest.

Poetry Sunday: In Perpetual Spring by Amy Gerstler

I find it true, as the poet says, that gardens are places where the "human desire for peace with every other species wells up in you." If only it were true that "for every hurt there is a leaf to cure it." 

In Perpetual Spring

by Amy Gerstler

Gardens are also good places

to sulk. You pass beds of

spiky voodoo lilies   

and trip over the roots   

of a sweet gum tree,   

in search of medieval   

plants whose leaves,   

when they drop off   

turn into birds

if they fall on land,

and colored carp if they   

plop into water.

Suddenly the archetypal   

human desire for peace   

with every other species   

wells up in you. The lion   

and the lamb cuddling up. 

The snake and the snail, kissing.

Even the prick of the thistle,   

queen of the weeds, revives   

your secret belief

in perpetual spring,

your faith that for every hurt   

there is a leaf to cure it.