I Saw the Swans Again . . .
I saw the swans again on Friday morning. Every day I take the train into the city and we go over the Little Calumet River, which marks the south end of the city limits. It's an industrial area and the river isn't safe to be in, although you can boat on it. Mostly I see the occasional barge being pushed by a tug boat. But on Friday morning, the swans were back. I wish I could have gotten a photo of them, but the train was going about 50 mph by then and I wasn't ready with my camera.
They've been gone so long this time that I thought maybe they were gone forever. I know they are cold-weather fowl. Even so, I look for them every morning on the Little Calumet. And when they return - this year in the deepest, darkest part of Samhain - I feel like I've come home to myself in some way.
I know when they leave to go north in early summer that they are seeking cooler temperatures, and by fall, every day I find myself thinking, "If I could just see the swans again, everything would be alright." And it's not even like anything is really wrong - but seeing them always feels like such a gift to me.
Maybe it's because I see them in the midst of what is, frankly, an ugly industrial area - their big white bodies floating serenely along in the filthy Little Calumet against the backdrop of the rail yard on one side, and what's left of what used to be the Acme Riverdale Steel Mill on another. That mill is closed now, and mostly demolished, but there is still a rolling mill in operation that belches smoke into the sky at the curve of the river.
I saw the swans again on Friday morning. After months and months of looking for them, there they were. Two of them. And somehow I thought my day would be better because I'd seen them again. Somehow, it was . . .
They've been gone so long this time that I thought maybe they were gone forever. I know they are cold-weather fowl. Even so, I look for them every morning on the Little Calumet. And when they return - this year in the deepest, darkest part of Samhain - I feel like I've come home to myself in some way.
I know when they leave to go north in early summer that they are seeking cooler temperatures, and by fall, every day I find myself thinking, "If I could just see the swans again, everything would be alright." And it's not even like anything is really wrong - but seeing them always feels like such a gift to me.
Maybe it's because I see them in the midst of what is, frankly, an ugly industrial area - their big white bodies floating serenely along in the filthy Little Calumet against the backdrop of the rail yard on one side, and what's left of what used to be the Acme Riverdale Steel Mill on another. That mill is closed now, and mostly demolished, but there is still a rolling mill in operation that belches smoke into the sky at the curve of the river.
I saw the swans again on Friday morning. After months and months of looking for them, there they were. Two of them. And somehow I thought my day would be better because I'd seen them again. Somehow, it was . . .
Comments