Swallow’s Journey
by Peter Peteet
The life he flew
Was both shared and his own
The curves that in other eyes were
Illusions of prodigy and prodigal
Many knew some and
No one would ever know all but
He gave away the parts again and again
His voice a part of the endless wind
But deep within his heart
He kept the sweetest
Ripest part
The way that welcome came
From faces familiar but now old
That listened kindly to his stories told
And diving to drink from the lake
Of his history
His eyes met reflection
And drinking deeply he knew both
The measure of the sky above
That horizons only hid
And the depth of history below
From which he came, and went
And returning to
Saw anew
And streaking down to partake from the past
He glimpsed himself both above and below
And drinking in did know
This surface was both real
And illusion
And so still the journey's fruit
Bittersweet awareness of the size and scope
Stayed within his throat
Unswallowable
Adam's evil and good inseparable
The lump of life ever
Ineffable