Her knuckle rap broke a spell
on ice glaze in a pail at the cabin door.
Then as if it were the signal for descent
a sixteen wedge of swans…
…brazen as Valkyries…
arrived from the north to claim residence
at that March pond wilderness.
Their five cubit wingspans
rasped currents in clear air…
though brassy throated honking
flawed white-shimmered elegance.
They…she and the swans…
existed easy at awareness edges
in that swan days progression
as she became a watcher…
watched their preening with unguents
drawn deep from dazzling feathers
watched their courting bustle on woody muskrat berms…
watched the intertwining of their mating thrash…
watched nests like floating barges
gently rocking eggs that broke to downy cygnets
watched promenades of pen…cygnets…cob…
as they paused to dabble pondweed…
wild celery…bluestem…brome.
Then one November morning pail water glazed,
and she watched…entranced…as swans ascended
lifting heavy bodies…earth free…magnificent.
Bonnie Marshall
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