He is a swan and he sits on a black lake trying desperately to save his feathers from soiling.
They all sit around him bobbing their heads in the filth and minding not one bit.
And as time goes by he knows his feathers have begun to dull
And he tries to fly away from it all
But they refuse to let him, he cannot fly, he is but a swan they tell him with pleasure
And he keeps getting filthier as they help paint each feather
And the lake begins to look more like a prison
And he watches his reflection become what he hates
He forgets about that before that has driven him
And he waits and he waits and he waits and he waits
For something he knows will never come
Help from elsewhere so he won’t have to try
Help from elsewhere to make it easy to fly
This help does not come as it was never out there
There’s no help for a swan that’s full of despair
Only he can turn his prison of hate, a lake full of muck, into a better landscape
The day will come when the swan flies away
And the others will watch and they’ll wonder and gasp
Because they thought swans were only swans, they know this from swans that lived in the past
And as this swan flies, sure his feathers are dull, he can barely flap, and his wings are quite small
But now he can see every lake all around
For there are many that wait for him to be found.