The Music Of Swans

[to Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam...]

(and for my Grandmother, Lucy White Young)

once we knew the music of swans,

the silver scrolled.

standing on tiptoe

you see the rose windows;

you can almost reach them.

you love a gardenia stillness;

it is not distilled.

perfume of ivory.

perfume of the palest green.

once we saw through the orchards

in all the paintings:

did they come to life?

we breathed our words

falling to earth all apple blossom.

or inscribed on the winter air, in crystal.

and in the citrus summers, in-between,

we learned the music of swans

so that afterwards, in the long ages,

someone would not forget them.

mary angela douglas 3 february 2015