Significance
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
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A swallow swoops away. It swoops from out
Of Buddha’s nose, the nostril on the left.
If there’s symbolic meaning in the bout
Between the sacred and profane, the heft
Of bronze-green Buddha as opposed to white
And black of tiny feathers on the bird
As fleet as wings, solidity and flight,
The meaning of eternity is blurred.
The swallow might have flown from pub roof eaves.
In both these cases, it is only life
And nothing absolute. The eye perceives
Whatever it desires. There is no strife.
In life is neither liberty nor force
Of fate. The bird and Buddha know divorce.
~ Phillip Whidden