Swift

how many are we

wedged in improbable
chinks, fidgeting
       amid dry stalks
we’ve posited one by one
on what’s left
           of an old design we keep
(these boomerang wings)
coming back to

who crave only
            airy
                       unbelonging

in truth the sole
                 compelling delight
we fledged & fell for

                                          let others inherit
                                          the earth

In Jennie Feldman’s second collection, the earth-shy bird of the title flies high above the territorial rivalries of its region. From the Middle East, Swift ranges across Europe to Scotland, always on the lookout for what coheres in the world and its telling encounters – with a Greek beekeeper, a cello maestro, lone figures on society's margins, the Latin poet Lucretius in an East Jerusalem café. Buoyed by music as well as water, notably the Aegean Sea and the rare rains of the eastern Mediterranean, these poems combine delicacy and vigour in their pursuit of an elusive equilibrium.