American Life in Poetry, Column 029

by Ted Kooser, U. S. Poet Laureate

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 (c) 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.