Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
*from poet Mary Oliver, of course, whose writing incorporates nature in a multiple of entirely credible, meaningful, and unobtrusive ways. I love that all of the swans in England belong to the monarch; it’s a quirky bit of British nonsense that charms me, although I am anything but a royalist! Mute swans mate for life, and 3 species of swan (who knew that there were more than one? not I!) are native to North America; these 3 species are the trumpeter swan, the mute swan and the tundra swan (also known as the whistling swan, but again, who knew?). Trumpeter swans almost went extinct during the early 1800s because HUMANS, but were brought back thanks to conservation in the late 19th c. and throughout the 20th. Do Not feed or give swans bread and crackers; salty items especially can lead to wing deformity; their main diet is grass, but they also nibble on insects and invertebrates. And do not mess with them, ever, as they are decidedly fierce defenders of their turf, and young. Okay, rabbit hole trawling complete.
To some Native Americans the swan represents grace, and the power of women to enter sacred space, as well as all our power to transform ourselves and our lives.
And have you changed your life?
