Celestial Swan Poem by Harley White

Swans are natural works of art
in form and feature full of grace,
famous for mating from the heart
in lifelong marriage bond embrace.

In legend the swan typifies
serenity, beauty, and peace,
plus purity may symbolize
or true metamorphic release.

A portraiture sensational,
of infant stars in nursery,
for poet inspirational,
has hidden clues precursory

of their growth sidereally
with massive ones making the glow
from cloud heat, materially
streaming off into the tableau.

Thirty-five youthful stars bigger
by twenty to thirty times each
hotter by six than Sun's vigor
give the brilliant stellar outreach.

It lies within Milky Way's core
in Archer, Sagittarius,
with hues of aesthetic rapport
and vivid facets various.

Across the canvas of the Swan
or Nebula M seventeen
is limned that lovely paragon
in winsome watercolor scene.

The Omega it's also named
for a likeness to letter Greek
within the constellation framed
by telescope image technique

where cosmic cloud's center is shown
amid ferment of newborn stars
in colorful gaseous zone
of stellar cradle reservoirs.

This nebula's beauteous girth
will finally be undermined,
as radiation from star birth
leaves just a small cluster behind.

The region of the depiction,
five thousand five hundred light-years
afar from the jurisdiction
over our planetary spheres

of Sun the premier provider,
is three thousand five hundred times
than the Solar System wider—
meanwhile we posit paradigms

on the tiny earthly shelter
where nature has let us arise
to our present helter-skelter
assumed command o'er land and skies…

Thus, Swan Nebula will ‘swan song'
sing, as go swan tales old and new,
when death whittles down its lifelong
fling, in an ultimate adieu.

There was an ancient Greek belief
that swans intone a tuneful phrase
in dying moment of their grief
having been silent all their days.

As an aside about this lore,
the familiar swan labeled ‘mute'
has not been known to song outpour
even when death is in pursuit,

albeit the type called ‘whooper'
has been noted when lungs collapse
to issue in dying stupor
a drawn-out string of tones, perhaps

the basis for the ‘swan song' myth,
plus ‘tundra' and ‘trumpeter' breeds
which when wounded utter therewith
some plaintive sounds as life recedes.

Aesop's fable of ‘Swan and Goose'
says that the stately bird so prized
once caught by mistake was cut loose
when its warble was recognized.

Composed four centuries ago
a madrigal ‘Silver Swan' states
in lyrical verse apropos,
which yet again the goose berates,

‘The silver Swan had not a Note
while living, but when Death drew nigh, '
to writer's words rephrase, ‘her throat
unlocked a melodied goodbye.'

‘Farewell, ' said she, ‘all joys, come Death, '
in last lament, ‘come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans have life and breath
in age like ours, more Fools than Wise.'

For us this still will resonate
as a fitting allegory
which hints at melancholic fate
owing to human vainglory.

Yet despondency may upend
with the haunting harmonic strains
that to musical heights ascend,
so hope for humanity reigns.