chimney swift
Chaetura pelagica
Where to Find:
Catch the chimney swift’s spectacular aerial show above the Solitude of St. Joseph chimney at dawn or dusk during their fall and spring migration. The chimney is located on the northwest side of Solitude of St. Joseph. View from the parking lot around the back of the building.
Resident Expert:
Featured Poem:
community poems
They live in the ruins of our industry,
scavenging on the corpses
left by capitalism like
city foxes, burrowing through black garbage bags.
Or the matsutake mushroom
which thrive only in disturbed soil.
They live in the in-between,
making their home in cracking mortar
as the earth spins from
holocene to anthropocene.
Where will the chimney swifts go
when there are no old-growth forests
left with hollow trees to call home,
and the chimneys crumble to the
beat of techno-salvation which might
ease the choking carbon in the air
but won’t bring back the hollow trees
or stop the sea from swallowing the
last chimney with an insatiable hunger
akin only to human greed.
Swarm of thoughts
by Jean AW
I watch as they fly into the hole.
They carry worries and wonders, thoughts of Journey.
Their wings are long and angled, ready to fly.
However, they linger inside a hole so dark
not able to leave. I see the light grasp &
linger from above maybe I should Join?
I swarm above and swarm . . . till I am
collided with others with similar worries
and wonders. I don’t feel alone. However,
then again I swarm so hard I fall back
into hole and everything is dark.
Flipping inconsistent
wings in a loosening
cyclone cut wide over
yellow brick smokestack,
the swifts of the lakes register
species map nodes of towers
endangered by modern screen
technique. Up and down, running
through their chimney guidebook
turning endless open air into a
light-up grid
They swirl through the air
Spinning, falling
like hte soot that once
spewed from the furnace below.
The furnace has now run cold
but its chimney serves a new purpose
a reliable stop on the non-
stop journey south
year after year
karyatid alembic - the entry for
August 29
Showsa’sa Desoto hood
Scattered in an umbrella of
Shredded
broken ring tones
Chimneye Swaft Pome:
I COULD
NOT THINK
OF A POME
bECAUSE
WIFE HAD
TO GO\
TO AIROPORT
AT\
4AM OR
SOMETHINGE
There was a fight before this—
he was late or I was late or
I can’t remember because of the birds—
of which there are many circling or
Performing miracles, really,
of not bumping into each other
I wish I could know how they know
how to do that