The Swan
by: Mary Oliver
Across the wide waters
something comes
floating--a slim
and delicate
ship, filled
with white flowers--
and it moves
on its miraculous muscles
as though time didn't exist,
as though bringing such gifts
to the dry shore
was a happiness
almost beyond bearing.
And now it turns its dark eyes,
it rearranges
the clouds of its wings,
it trails
an elaborate webbed foot,
the color of charcoal.
Soon it will be here.
Oh, what shall I do
when that poppy-colored beak
rests in my hand?
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:
I miss my husband's company--
he is so often
in paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven
doesn't lie down in flat miles.
It's in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,
and the gestures
with which you honor it.
Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those
white wings
touch the shore?
Oliver says the path to heaven doesn't stretch out before us in flat miles. No, the way to nirvana is about how you perceive the world around you, and how you praise it for all of its blessings. Oliver even drags out the big gun--William Blake, who, she notes, was often lost in paradise, according to his wife, because of his poetic imagination.
For some reason, the path to paradise has seemed very close to me today. I attended two church services this morning, and, as I played and sang the hymns, recited the prayers, listened to the readings and pastor's message, I found myself sort of breaking open like a seed, reaching through the dirt toward light and water. Or maybe I was like Mary Oliver, watching that swan glide over the water with its cloud of wings, me brought to a standstill by its miraculous approach.
Whatever metaphor you prefer, I've felt very raw and vulnerable today. I know that I just passed the birthday of my brother, Kevin, who died about nine years ago. The beginning of September is also the anniversary of my sister Sally's funeral, which happened eight years ago. Maybe it's simply the shift from summer to fall, the world preparing to go fallow for six or seven months.
Or it may be something much simpler. Yesterday, as I was sifting through the junk I hauled out of my old car, I came across a prayer card from my sister Rose's funeral. On one side is a picture of an angel in a gauzy white gown, her head crowned with white flowers (possibly daisies), swan wings spread against a starry sky. On the other side, an almost thumbnail photo of Rose above the words to the "Hail Mary."
I've been carrying this card around with me since yesterday, thinking of Rose every time I took it out of my pocket to look at.
Perhaps heaven really is closer than any of us think. It may be all around us, every day. In the morning light puddled on the grass. In a swan slowly sailing across a lake. In a little card found in the glovebox of a car.
What will Saint Marty do, what will he say, when the tips of those angelic swan wings brush the tears away from the shores of his eyes?
