"upsweep" poems
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.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
Where are those words which only my heart can speak?
Those which would bring you closer to me?
To outpour my heart into your ears, into your eyes,
To captivate your senses; but not just the five...
To tip you off balance and upsweep your feet,
Bring your head to my chest so you can feel the beat
Of my heart which is pounding so arrhythmically for you
Which it will with no doubt for the rest of my life,
My sweetheart do me the greatest honour... be my wife?
Mar 17, 2012
Mar 17, 2012 at 5:27 PM UTC
You are upsweep and whistle,
brontide I'd rather misconstrue.
Cordelia, you are abrasive
and I was never tough,
but my fingers are calloused
and my hands compliant.
Your empty bellows
are all I believe in.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 6:07 AM UTC
imagine,
if you will,
that as the first four notes of
Hits From The ****
drift into consciousness,
you see ahead,
approaching fast,
a beautiful
upsweep of snow,
a delicate cyclone
that moves itself
quickly from
non-existence to
existence and back.
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 10:47 PM UTC