When I arrived a man said,

‘You must see the swans.’

He seemed artless, no irony in his voice,

a sandy rough-faced lad of forty

with a genial smile.

But each time I trudged the narrow lanes,

overhung with oak and sycamore,

wounded by copper beech,

where purple rhododendrons choked the ash,

I lost myself in those names.

When I braved the boggy fudge of the track

that circled the jittery lake

while summer rain spat down,

the closest I got to swans

were downy clouds, brooding above.

2

Some days I’d pretend to give up,

hunched at my desk while the sun

teased near the window.

Did they glide closer then,

those watery illusions?

In this land of moody weather

I stalked them like a mad Capuchin friar

in my rain gear, despite a ghostly sun,

trying to glimpse those holy three

unflappable entities

on that restless dream of a lake.

But wait, now there’s five, I’m sure,

unbelievably white chrysanthemums

blown off shore,

drifting towards an indefinable light.