Head bowed, flowing across the water
Like an organic sepulchre,
Lost in the wriggling reeds
It raises its head once more,
Glancing mutely around
It sighs, its breath dying in the snow.
A symbol of light,
The swan is transfigued.

How slow the swan glides
down the darkening river
twisting its sleek, slithering neck
away from the sunshine-
saying nothing.
In the morning
only ducks drive through the water
only voles snake along the banks.

i must be some sort of permanently exhausted pigeon;
claws clinging to the telephone wire
drearily blinking my way through
the morning meeting of the aerial acrobatic society.

i am a seagull swarmed
amongst the chirpy conjecture
of these early birds;
and my soul caws an honesty,
a wail, a howl, the truth.

i am a tainted swan
grittily paddling myself through the marsh
we call this world,
a lone observer of the acrobats,
the stickiness of my feet keeping me
flightless.

and you are a swallow;
redbull wings migrate you to warmer climates.
you hear the seagulls
but listen to the pigeons.
you notice the swan
but her murky shallows are too icy
for your liking.

and you are a chicken;
blind beyond your own free-range vicinity.
you catch the pigeons as jet planes,
and the seagull's whisper is alien.
you don't know miss swan.

Watch how the white birds float
On fjords, eternally reposed—
The rustles will whisper
        how they keep pristine composure:
                 "Follow the glassy estuary streams,
                  where swans sleep quiescent darlings
                  of their ivory shrouds."

She took the part
That broke her heart
And soon would take her life

But the pirouettes
Help her forget
She's dancing on a knife

I wondered why the birds sang so late
On this gloomy Summer's evening
It was like a dream
A lesson I had not yet learned
Were they calling out
For the Sun's sweet return?
Do they not know their efforts were in vain
That the passage of time is as inevitable
As the falling of the rain

On the thin film of my umbrella
The pattering continued
In an irregular beat
Droplets formed like a masterpiece
Dripping down around me
I felt as though I were in a dome
A cosy bubble to call my own
I walked on

And finally reached the old church
And though I am not the religious type
I could see its worth
And it's ethereal beauty tonight
Sitting beside the cold stone wall
Sheening with the light that reflected
The rain was illuminated beside me
On this solemn dedicated bench

I looked out to the bay where the land
Molded around the sea
And I saw a lone swan soaring across the rippled water
Gliding gracefully stoic like a banshee
Through the misty downpour
My ill omen
I saw determination in her steady course
And a pensive sorrow in her solitude

I sat there for a long time

The sky had darkened
And angels on long shifts
Flew past on the roads below
I gazed again and she was lost
In the shadows, now perhaps snug in her nest
Her job she had done well enough
For today
Another soul she had saved
As the moon guided the waves
She would rest
And I would be on my way

Red toes peak out from peep-toe laced Sperries,
heels clicking the hard-tiled floor of the dance room.
The black swan stared back from its home within her mirror,
red toes peak out from peep-toe laced Sperries.
She twirled and twirled, the swan did the same.
Each day the swan came to play, chipping the polish with every dance,
until the red toes were chipped and nearly gone.