The singing white trumpeter swan is so white 
you couldn’t attempt to imagine her any other way.
Like marble she’s so painfully, breathtakingly white
that if you severed her heavy head, you’d imagine
there’d be no blood to flow into the ripples around her,
just a smooth snowy blankness inside her hollow neck.
And if you severed her graceful head, the song would die
in her empty throat, last notes lilting to a shrill stop.
She’d careen, thrashing water once still into motion,
a headless goddess with no eyes anymore to watch
her tranquil lakeside world fall, feathers unpeeling
like peony petals, except still so beautifully white,
as she devolves, decays to whirlpool and wind.
She may try vainly to flee from the end of herself,
and if she flew the sun would suck her into its arms,
and if she swam she’d sink into a calm oblivion,
listing like a ship overloaded with precious cargo.
Her stone heart is so heavy it’d drag her down.
Like marble she’d sit at the bottom of the lake,
of the whole world, looking up, peering coolly
into that sliver of starlight piercing from above,
and she’d glow in the dark of her own accord,
so dazzlingly, somberly white. 

Lavender Fields (June 22nd 2024)
(the poem I wrote yesterday that I forgot to upload)

Sweet smell of soft sleep,
slow, hazy summer dreams.
Fall into calmness.