page 222

Swan Song

Imagining transcendence
we pinned the wings
of swans to the blunt
nubs of our shoulder-blades
grafting it on.

Although in time
they grew large enough
to give our bodies levity
our laggard minds
took longer.

Neural runways unrolled
slowly, so at first
we mastered simpler stuff.
It changed the way
we slept. Feather beds

demand too much re-making:
instead we turned
face down, or on our sides
under downy blankets.
Intimacy too required

a whole new repertoire,
but the rustling, infinitely
delicate brush of plumage
made learning joyous.
Yet somewhere on the way

page 223

we became a solitary pair
a chill of sadness settling on us
unnoticed at first amid the glorious
warmth of our white cloaks.
We ceased to sing

seeing clearly from the vantage
of our airy architecture
how much there was to mourn for
on the awkward earth.
Then we took up

the endless task of smoothing
ruffled feathers. Preening, we discovered,
was sublime comfort, but still
it turned us away from the world.
Next we tried to cultivate the art

of listening. Intent: even the air
in our bones listening
so hard we heard their own high
hollow crack, crystals
of river ice re-forming.

Now we grow old and what
we've heard will ripen slowly
into song—one melancholy burst
to sear the earth
before we're gone.

page 224

Fled is that music

All your sleeves
unravell'd.

You are losing hold
of your leaves; they

flake from you, wind-scaled
and thankful.

After so much
control, such falling

apart: memory's short term
then school's out—

the birds disperse and wheel
over alien corn.

A constant effort drains
your sense. Just sometimes you'll

overhear a longer singing
on viewless wings, his small

melodious plot staked out
from a bare branch in the ashfield.

page 225

Air (on a tin whistle)

What to do when the cupboard
is bare? Sing a song of syllables

from a nightingaled bough;
make cradle play

in the windy forest, rude
and curious, light

as helium and as
hilarious. Sing the craggy

stone rose baby in us
insouciant, round-faced

in Paris, her many
square rooms occupied

by art and the aspiring
young. Make the empty air

give up its riches.
Sing the cupboard bare.