Migrating, Swallows, Assateague
       

It was not a matter of individuals, though,
for a moment, I tried to follow one with my eyes
at the edge of the roiling mass only

to lose it to the others. It was more a cloud
than a flock of birds, and, against the overcast sky,
churning in flight, it was more a wild storm

than a flock of birds, more a funnel cloud
forming, and what caught up in it
could resist being swept away? Not

a single bird. Not a single bird.
What I saw was my failure to grasp
what I saw. It was not a single bird

at the edge of the flock. It was not one swallow
glimpsed for a moment and lost. It was
all of the swallows to come, all that had come before.

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Copyright © 2011 Matthew J. Spireng All rights reserved
from What Focus Is
Word Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission