White Swan


We have all seen predation
by hawk, a thing of swift
and often terrible beauty
at play in the pastures of the sky
that, in the turn of a moment,
reveal its essential nature,
its hawkness, the streamers,
gory entrails of some beloved creature
clutched in its talons as it turns
and returns to its eyrie.


But, I have also seen predation by swan,
startled when I flung open the back door
in my haste to greet the early morning,
as was my custom. Huge and white it was,
not black, not gazing as it pushed
against the silent volumes of air
over my tiny pond -- much too tiny
to be used as a metaphor for life --
a large, white orb that wove its way
between plant and pole, pole and trellis,
to thread itself through some power lines,
and fly off into the dawn.


It was an improbable vision of comic beauty,
in large public display witnessed through
startled, sleep-stunned, zoom-lens eyes
adjusting to the changing light
and shadow pealed from the surface
of the pond, drifting upward
in proper swan’s-wake fashion,
absent any private chaos or streamers of gore.
Only silence and the transparency of water
held secret in the moment when things turn.


The colorful shabunken, the large gold comets,
had disappeared. Where they should have been,
resting, waiting for their morning feed,
only a vague erasure slowly revealed itself.
The friendly calicos and the fattening white comet
were gone as well. Most of all, the white comet.
A summer of acquired trust by nurture,
required to coax her from a natural reserve .
Now there was only the stillness of pure water,
images of breast-tucked bills and gazed reflections.


A gliding whiteness is but paint over
the essential nature of swan-ness. Black or white,
a paradox only to be embraced with bird netting
that does not distinguish color or species;
lace that will not admit either gobble or gore.
I will get new fish, of course, but not now.
In the spring, perhaps, when I come to the edge
of the pond each morning, as is my custom,
I will do so, not as a child edging into wonder;
but as a steward beneath a netted dawn. Perhaps,
then, I will have love on my lips.



November, 2005

© 2005 red slider. All rights reserved.

Back to Lobby