Swans: Streaming White Crosses
February 9, 2017
“Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air —
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A Shrill dark music — like the rain pelting the trees — like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds —
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, I your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed you life?”
— Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
I went to the Skagit Valley to see snow geese, but they were not in their usual places. Instead, I saw swans — trumpeter swans, I think, although both trumpeters and tundra swans overwinter here. Mary Oliver’s images — white crosses in the sky, black feet like dark leaves — capture the swans’ presence so perfectly.
Winter Day Trip to the Skagit Valley
February 11, 2012
Winter offers its own pleasures in the rural Skagit Valley, a one-hour drive north of Seattle. We were on the lookout for trumpeter swans and snow geese on our most recent trip. We saw the birds, but they had settled to feed some distance from the road. It’s always awesome to see and hear the great flocks in flight, even if they were too far away for good photos.