A FLOCK OF SWIFTS
Birds in far flight can evoke a strong
feeling in the heart and imagination. To quote Goethe's Faust
(translation ©Mark
Scrivener):
Ah!
for the spirit's wings have grown so light,
That we've no bodied wing that so behaves.
For still in each one born there's traces
Of feelings lifting upward, up and on.
When he hears, vanishing in far, blue spaces,
The trilling tremble of a skylark's song,
When over steep, spruce-covered height,
Outspread, the eagles hover round.
When over flats and seas, in flight,
The crane strives onward, homeward bound.
That we've no bodied wing that so behaves.
For still in each one born there's traces
Of feelings lifting upward, up and on.
When he hears, vanishing in far, blue spaces,
The trilling tremble of a skylark's song,
When over steep, spruce-covered height,
Outspread, the eagles hover round.
When over flats and seas, in flight,
The crane strives onward, homeward bound.
This swift breeds in Asia and South
Siberia and migrates south to Australia and other southern places
during the northern winter. It spends much of its life on the wing,
never willingly alighting on the ground and flies very fast and very
high. To quote from Wikipedia: The white-throated needletail
(Hirundapus caudacutus), also known as needle-tailed swift or
spine-tailed swift, is a large swift. It is the fastest-flying bird
in flapping flight, with confirmed speeds reaching 111.6b km/h
(69.3 mph). It is commonly reputed to reach velocities
of up to 170 km/h (105mph), though this has not been
verified.
A FLOCK OF
SWIFTS
A flock of spine-tailed swifts
swarms and drifts,
distant black wings on the blue,
pre-dusk, summer sky.
They glide. They rise so high;
Compatriots of sky.
They roam the boundless realm:
the free, ethereal
empires of air.
Visitants,
voyagers of vastness,
they travel through the far
kingdoms of the winds,
countries of the clouds.
With such a seeming ease,
they soar and sweep,
they wheel and fly.
they skim the sky.
Above the earth’s
set, heavy world,
they live the light,
far in our sight;
they ride world breath-
no passports stamped for them
when they departed from
steep cliffs of China and
far north coasts of Japan.
With wings on wind, they span
the weather’s current world;
they range the airy streams,
the rivers of the heavens…
like thought's far vision,
swift, spirit seeing,
aware of world's vastness, aware
of boundlessness of being.
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