Swans In a Mahogany Frame

They drifted—a pair—on a shadowed stream,
oak and elm glinting gold and orange
on the altar of an autumn afternoon. White dollops,
one with neck bowed, her mate hovering,
they swam the living room wall above the worn sofa
in my childhood home.  When I was sick,
I lay below them, slept in and out of their gaze.
Coming in from the fields evenings, Dad
would stamp his boots of dust under their calm
and silence.  As I pounded out ‘Fur Elise’
at the piano, stretched for ‘Moonlight Sonata,’
I felt their fixed patience, their faith. And in the dark
of grandparents’ deaths, the failed years
of sweet potatoes, they preened and held us,
their constant audience. Who were they
among us, strange as visiting angels? Two spills
of paint on canvas behind hazy glass?