Swans, Poets, and Friends

Mary Oliver’s poetry snaps my body in all directions trying to find her images in the air. I looked for her images while walking with friends on the wooden boardwalk at Cabal Marsh on the Finley Wildlife Refuge. Finley is about 15 miles south of Corvallis, Oregon on Muddy Creek. In the winter every year thousands of migratory ducks, geese, and swans hang out here to graze on the lush winter grasses in the refuge and on the near by farmers' fields. The Tundra Swans with their glistening black bills and sparkling white feathers float regally lording it over the much smaller Dusky and Cackling Geese.

Every once in a while on this wintry Sunday afternoon a playful Bald Eagle would swoop down to the slough spooking hundreds of geese into the air.

This is a small piece of Mary Oliver’s “The Swan.”

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, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

And these are photos of my friend and I who enjoyed the bald eagles, tundra swans, and “The Swan.”