It happens, spring comes to the river,
grass freshens, the reeds remember the dry sound
last year’s wind made amongst them.
These pollards, clubbed and splay-fingered,
are the same willows of my childhood.
These are the same birds
born over and over, rising in the estuary.
Then the swan flies, his wingbeat
through air a slow heavy applause
that ceases, sighting the weir to turn there,
takes his precise self in one motion
The wholeness of him, feather by feather.
The white sail of a ship
gone long since to the horizon. Or the lance
of a returning crusader. Or
a white banner bearing perhaps good news
at last from the kingdom.