Swan Sanctuary

At dusk the willows scarcely sway beside a silver glare-smooth pond. Beyond perception's preying gaze, a trumpet swan launches a song from breast through feathered loop of throat that crucibles stray poignant tones into a melancholy throng of sounds that purify the dusk. From silhouetted rushes glides white hush of grace and folded wings, part bird, part serpent -- cleaving wide the mirror lake into a wedge of rippling wake that shadows drown. Once more that strange ethereal cry rises where fireflies challenge night . . . then from the brink of darkness comes that longed-for mate's responding sigh as she sets sail for nuptial rites where sound and silence intertwine in feathered throats where swan reach finds the universal pulse.