Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	Swan song
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	In December dusk the wild swans came to the mere Suddenly white from dark-sky, webs braced, wings fanning, And a father said to his child ‘See the swans, dear, Touch down on the water like aeroplanes making a landing.’ When Icarus stitched his feathers he thought ‘like a bird’, And they thought ‘like a bird’ whoever saw him soar sunward; Leonardo drew wings, measured and marked like a bird, Knew man could fly hawk-like, stork-like upward and onward. And when in full time Orville Wright coaxed clumsy flimsy Match-stick, oiled-silk and gluey contraption air-borne, The gaping crowds groped for the wholly inadequate simile And cried ‘Like a bird! Man and machine like a swan!’ Does time bring in his revenges?  So do words, and lies And nature abused: clench your ears, your heart and your fist While the metaphor roars across our shattered skies And the prototype slips silently into the mist. Undated The Dancing Dust and other poems, 1983