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ALBERT GOLDBARTH<br />
27.000 Miles<br />
These two asleep . . . so indrawn and compact,<br />
like lavish origami animals returned<br />
to slips of paper once again; and then<br />
the paper once again become a string<br />
of pith, a secret that the plant hums to itself. . . .<br />
You see?—so often we envy the grandiose, the way<br />
those small toy things of Leonardo’s want to be<br />
the great, air-conquering and miles-eating<br />
living wings<br />
they’re modeled on. And bird flight is<br />
amazing: simultaneously strength,<br />
escape, caprice: the Arctic tern completes<br />
its trip of nearly 27,000 miles every year;<br />
a swan will frighten bears away<br />
by angry aerial display of flapping wingspan.<br />
But it isn’t all flight; they also<br />
fold; and at night on the water or in the eaves<br />
they package their bodies<br />
into their bodies, smaller, and deeply<br />
smaller yet: migrating a similar distance<br />
in the opposite direction.<br />
27 <strong>Beloit</strong> <strong>Poetry</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> Fall 2002
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