1302: Not Swans | Susan Ludvigson

Oct 14, 2011 16:57

"Not Swans"
Susan Ludvigson

I drive toward distant clouds and my mother's dying.
The quickened sky is mercury, it slithers
across the horizon. Against that liquid silence,
a V of birds crosses-sudden and silver.

They tilt, becoming white light as they turn, glitter
like shooting stars arcing slow motion out of the abyss,
not falling.
              Now they look like chips of flint,
the arrow broken.
              I think, This isn't myth-

they are not signs, not souls.
                                          Reaching blue
again, they're ordinary ducks or maybe
Canada geese. Veering away they shoot
into the west, too far for my eyes, aching

as they do.

Never mind what I said
before. Those birds took my breath. I knew what it meant.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On this day in...

2010: "Accelerando" by Cyril Wong
2009: "The Robbers' Cave" by Chita Divakaruni
2008: "Mr. Cogito's Soul" by Zbigniew Herbert
2007: Weekend, no poem

susan ludvigson

Previous post Next post
Up
[]