The black swan tells her story...

"To concentric rings the gods consign us", broods the black swan

mounted on her bed of twigs and down, this patient pen,

devoted guardian of six green eggs, pale pods of avian cycles,

inscribed with cryptic destiny, birth and death therein.

"For thirty Springs I have come to this muddy islet;

often have I nested on this mound, breeding

shining bubbles, bright new life,

bringing my pearl grey babies in their downy pelts to this park,

launching my brave progeny on this murky city pond.

Here I sit, tethered by domestic Love in countdown to the hatching,

remembering glory days, gregarious bold displays enacted

with noisy wild aplomb,

the gleaming passion of dusky plumage, with

my erstwhile mate, lifelong partner

and valiant king of these urban waters.

My time is nearly done. Yesterday disappears as Today slips towards Tomorrow.

A new breed claims sovereignty in the shrinking kingdom,

as courtesies subside

and fearless feathered fools cross lakeside roads,

bring traffic to a halt, honking, hissing

in imperious parade, unworthy contenders in our watery world.

For we, the black swans, are the spirit of this lake,

ancient squatters

when gods and men were intertwined in lyric mythic games,

when the world was young and we flew high,

chasing capricious rainbows to multihued demise.

We, the shapeshifters of aeons, luminous birds of primeval times,

clad in lavish robes of regal lineage, grew large and proud and strong,

schooled by the heavens in the lore of wetlands, marshes,

the magic of cosmic lakes and mossy green canals.

Riding radiant clouds we mapped the polar seas,

charted wrinkled continents, sailed through northern lights.

Instinct was our compass, our questing pure, primordial,

as we flew on in heartbeats of majestic mighty wings

Sprinkling stars and airy shapes to our constellation, "Cygnus",

we left our world, soon skating through the Milky Way, exploring foreign skies,

surveying the Great Southern Land for crystal waters, clear streams and creeks,

so greedy were we for wetlands pristine, wise and new.

We skimmed the ponds, sang to lakes, rich rivers and their tributaries,

scanned the mud of fertile estuaries with webby hungry pride;

eager to stake our claim, to mate, display, to trumpet our fidelity,

to mark the fresh ancestral grounds, these aboriginal territories.

Then the Dreaming changed our forms as the sunburned tribes bowed down,

a transformation to nocturnal tones, a branding of raven's hue,

jet black in colour, the ebony of night, now dark twins of the silvery northern swans,

soon condemned as a common crew, reviled, cast out, inky black cinderellas and our princes,

censored and excised forever from the snow white Euro tales.

But flash of red, of eye and beak showed sacred flames within,

and some pierced the sombre shade to see the art therein,

like Josephine, who traded lost Napoleonic gloire for her lovely sable swans,

installing a brace of coal black siblings in her pale Parisian billabong."

Thus the black swan reflects, sighing for her lost mate, bugling softly to the skies,

still following the dictates of ancient gods, her species lessons firm,

but pondering the Karma of the rings,

families of cygnets that chain her to this place

even as she plans strategies for their survival in the reedy waters that enclose her.

©bba 06/10/2005