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Betsy Sholl: The Word ‘Swan’ on a Slip of Paper Fell from my Pocket
and little I know of that swoony bird,
that long-necked moon with a beak, its shimmer
and swim through storybook streams—
until a swerve of mind sends me to those hissy,
slap-footed creatures in Galway who flapped
as if ready to spring, mean and meaning to bite.
The wind that morning was deliciously wild—
one second the water rippled like black pleats,
the next it was all gust-driven glitter
blowing the ticket right out of my hand
for the swans to trample like a shed feather
which they did. Grace and grumble sparred,
and the swans had their say: I was not getting
on the ferry, which it turned out wasn’t
going anyway in that riled-up bluster.
But those gatekeeper swans, snooty cousins
to geese, superior, like the cousins I’d see
at the many funerals for great uncles and aunts
I had to attend as a kid. There’d be a day
out of school, a ferry ride across the Delaware,
then on the other side those girls
in their matching pink coats, ruffled socks,
and shiny MaryJane’s. We eyed each other
the way girls do, dividing swans from geese,
though we were so young and fuzzy, how could
we know what we’d become? Still, they seemed
like golden swans whispering among themselves
as I looked on in my scuffed, brown tie-up shoes.
Then, the last uncle gone, I never saw them again
except for a ghostly hover in my mind.
But those ferry rides home—they were the magic—
that sweet watery between, bright stirred-up froth
on the river’s glassy dark. Sometimes a moon
white as a swan rippled down from its sky
to float beside us, trailing a wedge of light.
No wonder swans on water are called a ballet
and a bank when they gather on shore
with their awkward waddle and airhorn honk.
A group is also called a lamentation.
But who would wish that on anyone, given
that we all come to grief, after how many swerves
in whatever body we find ourselves. Body
of moonlight, body of froth, of trampled mud
and lost ticket looking like a shed feather, body
in line for the last ferry, cousins, cousins all.
~~~~
Betsy Sholl was poet laureate of Maine from 2006 to 2011 and has authored nine collections of poetry. Sholl has received several poetry awards, including the 1991 AWP Award, and the 2015 Maine Literary Award, as well as receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. Sholl’s poetry has been published in anthologies and in literary journals including Orion Magazine, Field, TriQuarterly, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Ploughshares. Sholl was one the founding members of Alice James Books, a non-profit publishing house at the University of Maine at Farmington, established in 1973 with the intent of widening women’s access to publishing.
Poem copyright 2024 Betsy Sholl
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Thank you, Michael. Betsy’s poems make one keep faith in and with poetry.
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I agree!
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Love this poem!
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As do I. Thanks, Martha.
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The imagery startles with its brilliance. And one image flows into the next, seemingly without effort. Wish I could do that. The poem swims around magnificently. Wish I had her waterwings.
Even a bevy of cousin geese would honk their praise at the lamentations of Betsy Sholls’s whispering golden swans.
And the swan dive bar where we all end.
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It builds and gathers and delights. Thank you.
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Excellent! x
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I love the way this poem moves. And how it moves me.
“But who would wish that on anyone, given
that we all come to grief, after how many swerves
in whatever body we find ourselves.”
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Agree with all of the above. Thank you Betsy for your gift of word & memory, sacraments of soul in these troubled days. A lamentation indeed!
Wishing our paths would cross again one day soon.
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Oh, this poem works in so many intricate ways, so many layered and echoing elements to it! Swans, water, girls, present, past, ticket, feather, funeral, ferries, gatekeeping (!), class, envy, the moon, and on and on. I’m saving it and will read it over and over. A tour de force. Thank you, Betsy. And thanks Michael, for publishing it.
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I couldn’t agree more, Richard. The poem is rich, intricate and compassionate
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I agree, Michael, Betsy does have such heart, soul, talent and handles tone so masterfully! What a powerful poem!
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beautiful, Betsy! Love, syd
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Oh God is this and she and they (swans) ever great! What a poem! Stops me in my tracks, lost feathers and all.
We’re weaning heifers today-but after reading this I wish my father was still alive to say—if only he would—“Take the rest of the day off.”
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Yes, Betsy is a great poet, such heart and soul.
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