Black Swan

Night Shadows

Black Swan; sliding between leaves of yesteryear — a reminder of three skewed, ugly ducks — retching up psychedelic wallpaper — severity of consequence — creeping into weighted nights — terrorized between lemon zest skins — assault on innocence — existing in fragile shadows — self love — an unpredictable

enigma — Black Swan; here you shy — a fluid, long neck — tissue eye — you choose not to look backward — don’t have thoughts for tomorrow — emotions let go —

swanning — you — me,

we — a myrtle tree — crushing agency into empty — one lemonade sky top canopy — stillness sways effervescent freedom winds — magician shadow puppets mesmerize — black beauty’s immersed within — no need to speculate — mercury moon shimmers bright— established lands of

peace — purify — all —

of life’s debris — three ducks dismount — distress calls in distant flight path fade away —

Black Swan here you grandeur; a delicious consistency of love-self-actualized — three wonders warm under breasted wing:

forgiveness — acceptance — understanding.

Freedom Reigns, Jaylee, ©, 2021

Yesterday, two leaves in my potted native Lemon Myrtle captivated me. I felt the sudden urgency to take a snapshot :-) Imagine my sense of awe when the photograph unveiled to my mind’s eye, a ‘Black Swan’, in the negative space between the leaves.

According to Native Symbols the Black Swan signifies ‘an insight about yourself which changes your position from one of victim to victor.’

I wrote this poem with the aim to capture the distance traveled from one of dis-empowerment to one of agency through childhood to adulthood. Further, it was written to capture how transcendence through awe unveils itself in the unlikeliest of places, especially when immersed in the here and now :-)

May the writing of this prose and the lemon myrtle imagery be like Indigenous bush medicine … a way of nature being in gratitude to nature as her sentience unfolds to gently guides us into well being through the mine fields that enter our lives.

In particular, may it pay tribute to the healing of childhood trauma by offering poetic voice as a scaffold … a bridge to traverse any shame, which may have been experienced.

Let this be a way to show humbleness for the beauty and grandeur which whispers back unconditional love in all things; a story surpassing limitations of time and place as collective greatness unfurls and spreads her infinite wings.

I would like to pay my deepest respects to the Traditional Owners and ongoing Custodians of the land we share and to Native Symbols for generously sharing your knowledge and wisdom in interpreting archetypes found within our encounters with nature.