After The Rain Poem by Gert Strydom

After the rain
the air is full of swallows
swishing up and down
hanging in it
to catch flying white ants
and I see them ascending
and descending twittering.

Some sit as if strung together
right next to each other
on the silver lamp post
and hordes are invited
to the feast of the swallows.

Later when I sit in my study
there is a bird
that that lands on my windowsill
that looks like a parrot to me
and seeing itself in the window
pecks constantly against it

or maybe it’s something else
that I take as a parrot
and its head is scarlet red
up to its neck,

its eyes wide from each other
and its beak is bended
and below the red
its pitch black
and the rest of its body is light green

and I know that it’s too late
for the festival of the other birds
but maybe it would rather have
An apple or two

and every day
I now wait on Polla
or whatever its name is
to come back
to awake me with its knocking
and maybe I will catch him
but it’s rather much better
to be without a cage
and never again to be cooped in.