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The
swallows know that something’s in the air.
The world seems tinder-dry. A sprinkler sprays
a drooping patch of marigolds, and where
bright water drips, two passing butterflies
dance above the flowers’ unfolding rays.
Their small wings fan no breeze as they ascend
but, twittering in their high and secret ways,
the swallows know that something’s in the wind.A spider strokes the moth caught in its snare.
Along the brittle lawn, some starlings graze.
A mantis raises jeweler’s hands in prayer,
caresses with its Torquemada gaze
the twitching cricket with whose flesh it plays.
Beside its hole, a fretful chipmunk stands
its guard. Ants disappear into their maze.
The swallows know that something’s in the wind.
No one watches with me. They
can’t bear
to be here at the ending of the days.
The far horizon brightens, and its flare
ignites the leaves and sets the air ablaze.
Forget the songs of Spring the poets praise -
this is mankind’s fall. Though we pretend
what’s coming is no more than autumn haze,
the swallows know that something’s in the wind.
Keats, with every leaf that falls, God
slays
the world, this world I pray will never end.
But what we’ve raised, now we will surely raze.
The swallows know that. Something’s in the wind.
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