They’ve taken down the trees
round Keeper’s Pool. The water’s lifeless,
bright and calm, the only creatures left
are two white swans, their nest
a circled heap of twigs and litter
a few yards from a park bench
looking at the view – the golf-course,
flagged and sweatered.
Forever symbols in some poem;
what these swans are is what they do.
They have no thought or use
for us, their watchers, or for the men
more distant in the fine spring rain
dragging their clubs across the green.
