The Swallow & the Memory of Departures
(after a swallow tracing circles above the roof, for Abubakar Ibrahim)
Doing what swallows do; rehearsing the language of wind.
The world, still soft with half-light, hums beneath the weight
of its own becoming. It dips, disappears, then reappears,
not knowing what it seeks, only that the seeking
is a kind of survival. How human, this yearning
to follow a direction unnamed, how we too
fold our small maps into the body’s creases,
travelling through hours that forget us. Some evenings,
we discover our shadows have wandered ahead,
leaving our names behind in a dream’s careless mouth.
Still, we return—again—to the open air of our longing,
to the steady ritual of searching.
Before me, on the edge of this quiet room,
light gathers itself like an apology.
The walls breathe, forgiving my stillness.
I watch the bird draw its invisible thread,
stitching dusk to dawn with the thinnest needle of sound.
There is something of us in them, our arrivals,
our brief dwellings, our departures. How we build
and unbuild ourselves with each passing season,
call it endurance, or love, or the ache
that keeps the ribs open for wonder.
I listen to the soft thunder of its wings,
and to my own heart echoing the pulse of flight.
Perhaps this, too, is living:
to mistake distance for promise,
to fly anyway, believing in the small mercy of return.
Outside, the air ripens into gold;
the pilgrim bird perches on the edge of morning.
Soon, it will follow the wind’s instruction
into other skies, carrying this warmth
like a whisper in its feathers. And I,
rooted in the hush it leaves behind,
will rise also, beginning again,
like the swallow, with the gentle faith
of those who know that even what stays
is already on its way.
Rain Keeper
I close the day with a small ritual:
doors latched, switches clicked to silence.
The room folds itself into shadow,
a faint hum left in the wires.
I step out, ducking beneath
the sigh of rusted shutters.
Behind me, light drips
from a single stubborn bulb—
a heartbeat I leave behind.
Outside, the rain is already
writing on the streets,
each drop a word I almost know.
Somewhere in the mist of engines,
something is about to begin.
Coffee
(after Paul Muldoon)
I was rummaging through crate after crate
as they rolled in off the docks at Galway
when I stumbled on Descartes in Dublin;
the book lay cracked at a napkin
stained with coffee; a fringe
of frayed red linen from a breviary:
a coffee-bird’s burnt wingtip.
All I’ve got in the flat is a crust of
bread soaked in olive brine
and this bitter little cup of coffee. Take it. Sip.
________
Ismail Bala is the author of Line of Sight (Praxis, 2020), A Span of Something (INKspired, 2024) and Ivory Night (KSR, 2024).
