A poem about swifts in flight is the perfect antidote to your smartphone’s frenzy

Swifts

The swifts winnow the air.

It is pleasant at the end of the day

To watch them. I have shut the mind

On fools. The ‘phone’s frenzy

Is over. There is only the swifts’

Restlessness in the sky

And their shrill squealing.

Sometimes they glide,

Or rip the silk of the wind

In passing. Unseen ribbons

Are trailing upon the air.

There is no solving the problem

They pose, that had millions of years

Behind it, when the first thinker

Looked at them.

Sometimes they meet

In the high air: what is engendered

At contact? I am learning to bring

Only my wonder to the contemplation

Of the geometry of their dark wings.

–by the great RS Thomas