Point of Singularity
The swan, a long line from wing to eye, a soft twilight hovers above her as she takes the air above her neck and sets it down. The water moves out into countless rings. Countless ripples step from her, then gather again below her underside. How everything seems to meet below where she paddles and slows herself to rest. Maybe a cave stretched out her belly and pushed a river from her empty hollows, her coolness and lime and so many places to hide existed without blaring sunrises or coy moons or shadows following feet in summer, just darkness and more darkness, and Philomel silences, desperate and shaking for light. Maybe the river met the lake after it slid along a line of trees. The trees' limbs dangled and the stream lapped up fallen leaves and carried their open palms to another place farther down to a magnificence, a clear open landscape of water, blue meadows with a porcelain bird on the surface, gently placing her long neck below for splendor. From the distance the lake, the swan, the sight of stillness like Dante's Beatrice tucks herself behind a man's eye as an image in the distance, to be sought after. The swan dips her neck slowly to touch the water's tip and slowly of sand. They dip into the darkness, shine for her voice that carefully places each word down with consideration. ~ Jenny Benjamin-Smith