Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week October 24, 2005
		Colorado poet laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril died Friday, October 28, 1988, at his home, 2123 Downing St., Denver.  The two-story Victorian, where he  had lived since he was four years old, had been declared a Denver landmark in 1973.  When "Swallows" appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (February 1964),   he was already in his late sixties.
			Swallows The prairie wind blew harder than it could, Even the spines of cactus trembled back, I crouched in an arroyo clamping my hands On my eyes the sand was stinging yellow black. In a break of the black I let my lashes part, Looked overhead and saw I was not alone, I could almost reach through the roar and almost touch A treadmill of swallows almost holding their own.                      --Thomas Hornsby Ferril                          Copyright (c) 1964, 1966, by Thomas Hornsby Ferril. Used with the permission of the Thomas Hornsby Ferril Literary Trust.
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