Swift Watch

Swifts

The boys below the basketball hoop aiming
for the circle of air it describes
do not notice a sky full of birds swirling
above the playground in eccentric loops
around the chimney of the school.

As sunset blood washes into gray river of dusk, swift
follows swift in fluttering ellipses chuckling
at their own scrawling choreography, flirting
between the brick cave and rising half moon,

Until one, then fifty agree to drop
like leaves with landing gear into the sooty column,
into a funnel through which hundreds disappear,
folding charcoal wing against wing,
while a few wheel away for their last rotations
each feather testing each space they fly.

--Ellen Mendoza. aka Grazingllama.

I mentioned the swifts a couple of days ago, and Ellen Mendoza sent me her poem, but I didn't post the poem till I got her permission on the next day, so probably most people didn't see it. Here it is again, well worth a second read.

Tonight I went to the Swift Watch, something that happens every night in September, a uniquely Portland kind of activity. A couple of thousand people gather near sunset, lay out picnics, bring their dogs and kids, friends and grandparents, and watch about 30,000 tiny swifts mass in formation in the sky and then fly down one (rather large) chimney. There's a wonderful documentary about it, with a trailer I linked a couple of days ago, so if you saw that link don't bother with this one.

I've gone every year I've lived here, and I've tried shooting the birds with a slow shutter speed, to get their choreography, but a zoom lens would be better; I've tried shooting the crowd, but for that you really need a wide-angle.  Last year I shot Bella at her first Swift Watch. This year I decided to do what the 35mm does best: get in close and watch the people around me as they watched the birds.