The Haitian President to His Women, on the Sight of Swallows Flocking in the Waters off Fort Dauphin
Quite often from my house, I see swallows
moving in a wide sweep over the harbor
as one, the denseness of them somehow
flat and twisting as a loose ribbon or
flag might, if wrested from its mooring and
blown haphazardly in rough gusts of wind.
It is the sameness of motion that most
delights me; the hundred bodies turning
in tight unison, wrapping around ghosts
of invisible up-drafts now churning
in the late day heat of the western shore -
and with them, a lone thought rises, and sings:
my beauty is in this rushing chorus,
this doubled beating of separate wings.
KMC 10-24-06
2 comments:
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
This is the soul. This is the life of the spirit. And you have done it, said it, condensed it into 14 lines of 10 syllables. Amazing.
I can't understand why no one else has commented about this really swell poem, but it has haunted me to the point that I have located the music to go with it.
No, I did not compose it but it is perfect music.
It is John Adams', Shaker Loops #4 entitled "A Final Shaking." Read very slowly, appropriate for the minimalist music that it is, the poem works incredibly well with the music. In my reading practice, I closed the poem with a reprise of the line, "And with them, a lone thought rises, and sings."
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