Classic Poem

I follow the swallow's flight,
still, in the summer afternoon.
Because I have not caught, quite,
though twenty years are up soon,

something these seemed to promise
in blue blithe hierogram —
image or auspice
the future would redeem. . . .

Twenty whole summers now
as one netting the wind,
and nothing a man can do
in a swallow's image. Mind,

pivoting on a chance
syllable, may return
through more circumference
than loops above a barn,

turning from thought to thought,
from age to age — yet
have but been wind-caught
and tossed to a wild bet.

Swallows can fly, that's that.
Nevermind the point of view.
Crack the indeliberable gnat
of life while the sky's blue,

chuckle over it in the rain â?¦
While we scuff iron shoon
through pavilions of Charlemagne
or hangars on the moon.











By permission of the author.