A Lamentation Of Swans Poem by Michael Salcman

Like immortal cells growing in a dish
the alien swans multiply beyond our wish
for silent beauty. And the buried day rises as a dream
how to kill the mute swans its theme,
one Tchaikovsky never penned,
is now debated in shore side bars and fens
by oystermen who lift their glasses in sad farewell
to black skimmers and underwater grasses;
they mourn the native tundra swan
and the least tern before it too is gone,
and if alien beauty must be trapped or shot
or poisoned, its nested eggs addled not
to hatch, they're willing to concede
how often beauty breeds dark necessity.