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Sue Chadd

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Leda And The Swann

It was a mistake to go back.
It’s always a mistake.
Nothing can ever be the same again.

Now the place looks sordid,
tall trees blackened stumps,
the lake littered with debris
from another life; microwave
with its door wrenched off,
rusting chassis of a grey Citroën,
old tyres stacked tower-like
against a darkening sky, and those
cliffs, cliffs of clay scooped out
by clanking yellow metal buckets.

Not by any stretch of the imagination
an abode of the Gods, of love,
but unmistakenly of Man,
that self deceiver, that builder
of walls of legend,
set with a crude mortar
that denies the possibility
of tenderness.

Our tragedy,
their tragedy, and a thousand other stories
had their beginnings here;
forbidden love trapped
in the shell of two ivory eggs.
Deep in the pit that was once our heaven,
the stench of burning
stirs images of waves of warriors,
cities falling, horses dying.

The air is brushed by an uprush
of powerful wings. I turn
and see a familiar shape in the water,
it could be a God swimming.
I remove my helmet for a better look
but I am not dazzled.
It was a trick of the wind, the light;
a half submerged shopping trolley
wire body dripping with slime,
its one remaining wheel an eye,
glinting with the promises of false Gods.

The sun goes down blood red behind
barbed wire,
and on the oily surface,
on the rancid rainbow sheen,
I do not see
the swan’s feather.

 

Page(s) 28-29

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