plucking sounds from anything, everywhere
where nowhere sits still in the middle of a universe
-out of sight out of minds out of memories grasp
a bird sings for its love of singing
flies through one window and out another
if I cannot remember its song did it indeed sing
too distracted too busy to listen but my heart registered
the air movement across its broken mountains
the valley of life and death resonating with sounds of silence.

I used to think the swans would live
Until the world no longer spun.
And that they could live forever and a day
And bask out in the sun.
Even the ugly duckling; who soon learnt his fate,
Doesn't have an end or a sell-by date.

Now, as we know, things come and go.
And beauty fades and falls.
But I used to believe that swans could go
And out live us all.

I see white feathers, of purity and of clean.
And I watch them move so graceful and ever so serene.
The swans, they dance and glide across the lake's wide top.
And will always do so, even when my heart stops.

Where do swans go to die?
I hear my teacher ask.
I don't really know, I replied.
I never thought to ask.
But I wish to see a dead one, just to believe that it can be so.
But I don't think I could cope with that, if one died near me though.

Swans can't die, I tell myself as I sit here by the lake...

The lake that holds no movement
For all the swans have gone.
But I do not understand,
What in their life went wrong.

Where do swans go to die?
A better place, I bet.
But in the next life, with those swans,
How much better could it get?

A morning orchard walk,
myself, two dogs and
two following barn cats.
Repeated often, a shared
companionable reverie
of mutual tranquility.
An odd family of sorts,
devotion comes is many forms.