In The Morning

How graceful is the white neck of this swan,
Reflected in the river's swelling flood.
His head bent sideways, he peers down for food,
The pinions of his flight secure and drawn,
Prepared for sudden plunge, or skyward on
To aerial reconnaissance, the brave
And brilliant, sun-bedappled, dancing waves
Below him as he rises with the dawn.
Nearby upon this same familiar beach,
Another of that species stands, and warms
His aged, ragged, soiled and ailing form,
And hides beneath his wing his head and beak.
I stand beside him. He seems not to care,
Resigned to yield unto the fate we share.

Arthur Lee Evans was born in Annapolis, Md. He is an employee at the Maryland State Archives, has been married over twenty years, and is interested in philosophy and eastern religion, particularly Buddhism. Over the last ten years, he has had around forty poems published. They have appeared in such places as Romantics Quarterly, Blind Man's Rainbow, Contemporary Rhyme, Waterways, and Lucid Moon.