The Love of a Swan

We are swans on a silver-tipped morning,

our necks curved toward each other

like the crescent moons that bless our lake.

The water hums its hymn beneath us,

and every feathered breath between us

is a vow spoken without a word.

My palm rests in yours

not gripping, not holding,

simply existing in the space where our souls

already understand eternity.

Even the air feels slower with you,

as though time itself has knelt down

to witness our beginning.

We speak of cygnets,

soft as clouds in their first summer,

trailing behind us in a line of light,

the living proof of our promise.

I can already feel the weight of their down,

the warmth of their trust,

a family born from the still waters of our love.

You tell me my sapphire waits for me,

blue as the deep heart of the lake,

the same shade that lives in your birthstone,

and the blue of my eyes when you are entirely mine.

I imagine it sliding onto my hand,

a constellation bound in gold,

the world quiet as we seal the moment.

We dream aloud of Napa,

the vineyard rising in the sun’s embrace,

each vine a witness,

each grape a blessing.

White linen drapes in the wind,

your voice steady as you speak my name,

and somewhere in the distance,

a pair of swans glide in perfect mirror

of what we already are.

Even now,

drifting here, the lake folding beneath us,

I feel the divine symmetry of it all:

two rare creatures who found each other,

choosing, every breath,

to glide forward side by side.

Sincerely Krystle Kelley