Getting up at the break of day is not unusual. I get dressed and take the steps down from the loft to make the coffee. But this daybreak was different. Through the window of the A-frame cabin loft, I catch sight of the tops of two long white necks. I rush to the window to see a Trumpeter Swan pen and cob…and six cygnets parading across the yard. The next day they were nowhere to be found.

Below the Window

morning with the swans, GCS, May 24, 2023

slender snow-white necks
pass below the window of
the a-frame next to the 
wetland pond where the
trumpeter swans build their
borning home each year
while the red-wing blackbirds 
feast on cotton-candy puffs
the cat’n-nine-tails serve
for breakfast each spring
and the loons dive and
rise to feed their young by 
the land we think we own.

no “no trespassing” signs
mark the land where the two-
leggeds come when the 
Illusion of meta-verses 
where wetlands never shrink 
or die leave us yearning for 
this wondrous place where a 
trumpeter swan pen and cob
proudly march their young 
across the dmz between reality
and madness craning their 
necks to guard their cygnets 
from the two-leggeds looking
through the lofty windows.

Puff

the day after, GCS, March 25, 2023

there was no parade today
below the windows — no cob
or pen, no line of six cygnet
trumpeter swans — on our
side of the dmz, not a feather
left behind. An early morning
mournful loon cry warbles
across the pond a psalmic 
lament for the soul-mates who
return each year to build a nest 
to hatch and train the next 
newborn from primordial depths.

far from the wrecks of time where
drones with artificial intelligence
bulls-eyes drive the world insane —
perhaps somewhere in moscow 
or miami a strong-man thirsts for 
a place like this where cygnets,
cobs and pens play by the wetland 
no one owns where instead of 
drones with eyes that cannot not see -- 
no bully or bomb breaks the hush
when the red-wing blackbirds 
swoop and sing an ode to joy.

Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017, Wipf and Stock), 49 brief meditations on faith, life, and the news; July 24, 2023.