The Swan

The Swan

Bruised wings and battered bones

Know better the efficacy of time

Nestled snugly in the shattered rushes

Shivering at the advancing autumn,

Its encroaching chill, the unrelenting

Certainty of fate--- hollow consolation.

Dull flesh resigns the night

Each breeze bringing its tempest of leaves

---a swirling, visualized symphony

Of color and shape.

Each November tear knows the bitterest truth;

Each chill sunset hides a different law

Of an earth groaning; of a world unwinding

In slow entropy.

Eyelids flutter, seeking desperate respite,

She draws in her slender neck against the chill,

Still graceful as the unfurling fronds of bracken,

Even in defeat.

Glittering sunlight fades from the surface of the water

As the pale Hunter’s moon rises to survey its shadowy domain.

Wakeful nightbirds twitter from the fringes their callous frivolities.

Trembling still,

The watchful eye,

Scanning, at last, the dark expanse,

---exhaustion trumping vigilance.

She shivers one

Or twice

And draws to close her weary eyes in sleep

Or more, perhaps to dream

Of latter days upon the wing.