If they were just gulls or mallards
I probably wouldn’t bother,
But swans! I mean, ballerinas spend years
learning to copy their gestures,

The way they bend their necks;
Composers write symphonic music
Just about the way they float; mystics
Attribute an unblemished aesthetic

To their pair-bonded mating behavior
So when I hear from the local birders
That there are currently over thirty-
Thousand tundra swans stopping over,

Taking a break on their way to the arctic
I find an old pair of binoculars
And tell the kids, let’s pack a picnic,
We’ll go see what Swan Lake looks like,

And just when I am thinking the birds
Have already flown on northward
We drive around a bend in the road,
On the lake’s horizon a foamy cloud

Of milky white floats like froth
On a cup of cappuccino, singing forth
A discord like thirty thousand clarinets
Warming up their reeds before a concert,

The swans! They rise into the air
On angel wings, always in pairs
The bird and its own ghost together,
A trinity of air, water, feathers,

And if only I had any idea how
To dance balanced on one satin toe,
Or play a mournful tune on the piano
And cello I’d be doing it right now.

As a child Amy Brunvand used to go swimming at Silver Sands beach where there was a magic carpet of brine flies that parted beneath your feet as you ran to the water.