The Swallows of Capistrano

[BobBradshaw]

latest version:
When the swallows come back to Capistrano
That's the day you promised to come back to me

  --from Leon Rene's song 'When the Swallows Come Back to Me'


The Swallows of Capistrano

The swallows darken the sky,
flying to their nests  

in the high niches and under the eaves
of this stone mission.

Lonely, I wander the grounds,
and plan to stay in San Juan

till the swallows leave.   
I glance through the crowds  

half-expecting to see
an old lover.

Slowly the cafes and hotels empty,
the crowds thinning

like a kettle's dying plume
of steam.   The last chirp

of a swallow hangs
high above me, a wisp

of a song's note
fading.



first person:

When the swallows come back to Capistrano
That's the day you promised to come back to me

  --from Leon Rene's song 'When the Swallows Come Back to Me'


 The Swallows of Capistrano


    Every year in his song Leon Rene
    waits for his love's return
  
    as the swallows darken the sky.
    I am visiting for the first time,

    the fork tailed swallows
    swooping and dipping 

    in the warm air currents,   
    flying to their nests  

    in the high niches and under the eaves
    of this stone mission.

    Lonely, I wander the grounds,
    and plan to stay in San Juan

    till the swallows leave.   
    I glance through the crowds  

    half-expecting to see
    an old lover.

    Slowly the cafes and hotels empty,
    the crowds thinning

    like a kettle's dying plume
    of steam.   The last chirp

    of a swallow hangs
    high above me, a wisp

    of a song's note
    fading.

[SivaVelliangiri]

swooping and dipping
in the warm air currents.
Birds fly to their nests high above

in the niches and under the eaves
of this stone mission.

I like this line,'of this stone mission.'.I also like the fact that you have chosen the couplet form to the trio let.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Siva!

[Bernie01]

Bob---

the poem attempts a treacherous walk on the edge of sentimentality---pat boone sings the song, but so does this man circa 1940:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/sear ... tion=click

the poem wants a mood of both recovery and loss---Hemingway on the last page of The Sun Also Rises---the bitter sweet:

"Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”/i]



and from an Indian novel reviewed in the NY Times:


The writer He has pounced on his new wife, Anita, in their hotel room, but can’t untie the drawstring of her sari’s petticoat. It’s all knotted up — ghachar ghochar, she says, reaching for a word from her childhood, a word invented by her little brother to describe a snarled kite string. The narrator is thrilled by this intimacy, to be welcomed into her secret language. In the morning, he gestures at the disheveled bedsheets, their entwined legs: ghachar ghochar.


and


The narrator’s wife has gone out of town and he is idly rifling through her closet, touching her clothes, her jewelry. He catches scent of her suddenly. He presses his face into her saris to smell more, but the closer he gets, the more the smell retreats. “Whatever fragrance the whole wardrobe had was missing in the individual clothes it held. The more keenly I sought it, the further it receded. A strange mixture of feelings I could not quite grasp — love, fear, entitlement, desire, frustration — flooded through me until it seemed like I would break.”



the more keenly the visit to Capistrano, the more illusive the feelings.


oh, catchcing that moment of balance between desire and fulfillment.


i start here:

in the high niches and under the eaves
of this stone mission.

Lonely, I wander the grounds,
and plan to stay in San Juan

till the swallows leave.
I glance through the crowds

half-expecting to see
an old lover.

Slowly the cafes and hotels empty,
the crowds thinning

like a kettle's dying plume
of steam. The last chirp

of a swallow hangs
high above me, a wisp

of a song's note
fading.


we all want the elegant, lean, balletic---as one critic said.


bernie

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Bernie! That helped. Would you take out the word 'Lonely'?

[Bernie01]

Bob---


close call, but i would leave the word in the pom. i like the toughness of stating a usually hidden, private emotion.


bernie

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks again, Bernie...appreciate it

[Billy]

Bob, I agree with Bernie. Though I'm not sold on the end. It just doesn't seem strong enough, then again, maybe it should not be overpowering. I like the new version.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Billy, for stopping by and commenting....I always appreciate it.