The Black Swan

Black on flat water past the jonquil lawnsRiding, the black swan drawsA private chaos warbling in its wake,Assuming, like a fourth dimension, splendorThat calls the child with white ideas of swansNearer to that green lakeWhere every paradox means wonder.

Though the black swan’s arched neck is likeA question-mark on the lake,The swan outlaws all possible questioning:A thing in itself, like love, like submarineDisaster, or the first sound when we wake;And the swan-song it singsIs the huge silence of the swan.

Illusion: the black swan knows how to breakThrough expectation, beakAimed now at its own breast, now at its image,And move across our lives, if the lake is life,And by the gentlest turning of its neckTransform, in time, time’s damage;To less than a black plume, time’s grief.

Enchanter: the black swan has learned to enterSorrow’s lost secret centerWhere like a maypole separate tragediesAre wound about a tower of ribbons, and whereThe central hollowness is that pure winterThat does not change but isAlways brilliant ice and air.

Always the black swan moves on the lake; alwaysThe blond child stands to gazeAs the tall emblem pivots and rides outTo the opposite side, always. The child uponThe bank, hands full of difficult marvels, staysForever to cry aloudIn anguish: I love the black swan.