Swan Song

Soaking in the stillness of the sagar, suspiring the saccharine summer scents, she sees six swans – silver shapes shimmery among the sage shrubs – serenely slip away, their soft splashes sprinkling the sibylline silence; she sees sangria steadily seep into saffron skies, shepherding the shrinking shafts of sunlight; she sees shadows shift then sluggishly subside into the soil; she sees the splendour of sunset shrivel and sparkling specks, scattering starlight, swathe smooth Stygian satin; she sighs, striving to shove back sepia snapshots of seasons stolen away, to surrender to smothering sensation, to succumb to stifling solitude… But alas, stubbornness submits to sorrow, spilling over in salty streams sharply swiped away. As soulful strains sound from the sagar, she stands shyly and shakily, then self-doubt settles and she straightens, saucily and strongly – seize such a sublime stage she should. Spiritedly she sings her solo, smiling as the shrubs shed their shadowy skins and slide into scarlet seats shielded with squabs, as the spruces stop their susurrating, as the swans stretch their slender sinuous scrags, as even the stars succour and shine down as one spotlight.

Savouring the stubs of her song she surveys stoically as the shrubs shuffle back into shadow, as the scarlet seats sag and splinter, as the spruces swish and sway, as the swans swim serenely, as the stars shift back to their serpentine sequence – such stark sincerity.

One last solo, she supplicated and secured; now she is satisfied.

Silver streaks, scarlet spatters, a single silhouette staggers.

On the morrow the sun still strides up sanguinely, sending splendid scintillas of hope; the svelte snowy-white swans still swim swiftly, sharp-eyed for signals of savagery; and the summer is sweet and still.