In The Spirit Of Rumi,31-The Swan Poem by Michael Shepherd

How beautiful the white swan,
gliding effortlessly, it seems,
the sunlight shining on those feathers
protecting its skin and body better
than do clothes protect a man!

White as if to proclaim God’s beauty mov ing
on the waters, like the first day of Creation,
it dips its carefully constructed neck so elegantly
to find its invisible food…

while invisibly too, under the surface,
its legs paddle hard and fast…
Who would dare to call the swan
a hypocrite because of this!

In India they call the saints
who seem to glide so effortlessly
through life, glide across our gaze
so that for a moment, we would be them…
call them Paramahansa, great swan..

who knows how hard a swan
finds its life, moving against a fierce current,
lifting its huge body into the air,
knowing direction more clearly than any man…

who knows how hard a saint
works invisibly all the time, has worked,
will work, eternally… for us,
watching on the river-bank of life
the river, itself yearning for the sea,
to lose itself in the vast harbour of the waters…