This poem is not included in my Swan ebook but it's one of my favourites The Swan by Mary Oliver Across the wide waters something comes floating–a slim and delicate ship, filled with white flowers– and it moves on its miraculous muscles as though time didn't exist as though bringing such gifts to the dry shore was a happiness almost beyond bearing. And now it turns its dark eyes, it rearranges the clouds of its wings, it trails an elaborate webbed foot, the color of charcoal. Soon it will be here. Oh, what shall I do when that poppy-colored beak rests in my hand? Said Mrs. Blake of the poet: I miss my husband's company– he is so often in paradise. Of course! the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. It's in the imagination with which you perceive this world, and the gestures with which you honor it. Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those white wings touch the shore?

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