ÒThey return each year in a glide
of feathers so thick youÕd swear
theyÕre wing tip to wing tip.
The sky is black, broken by light
seeping through sunÐgoverned wings.
In March, the swallows return
and seize the town with their singing.Ó

She leans back to face the sky.
A brief silence rests between us.
She imagines them, the glitter of wet
wings, a flock busying a pecan tree,
a chorus of a hundred. On command,
they explode from the tree in a single
clamor, shaking pecans to the ground.

ÒA sky bridge,Ó she sighs, raises
her open hands, then parts them,
palms up, an arc through the air,
ÒAnd then they land,Ó she swoons,
Òhundreds of them, to kiss the ground.Ó

 

ÒThis poem was drafted soon after Dr. Smith mentioned the return of the swallows to Capistrana in his History of Religion in America class, Fall 1997. Its purpose is to capture the beauty of the unexplained and the human conflict found in the explained.Ó