When Swans Return (JM)

 

(Joseph MacRae, published in Mindful Poetry Moments, fourth edition, edited by Stacey Simms and Eddie Gonzalez, The Well (in partnership with NPR's On Being Project), 2022. Also published in Writers at Play Presents: The Art of Letter Writing, edited by Daisy Barrett-Nash, Equal Arts, 2023. A 1992 poem reworked for the above.)

When Swans Return 

(journal entry for 9-11, Salmon Creek, Alaska) 

As fire shakes the world 

a small wave ripples the water 

in this outback. As I tag the salmon, 

so far from the chaos, the boom. 

As fall returns to the North Land 

the tundra swans return 

to Salmon Lake. 

A rest on their long journey 

to the South Land. 

As they land upon the pristine waters 

gliding smoothly upon the shallows 

barely a wake to be seen. 

For this brief moment 

they are the Emperor and the Empress 

of Salmon Lake.