My brother Andrew Beal, a talented musician and composer, is creating twelve songs based on poems from my poetry collection, Bird-Watcher’s Diary Entries. This is our sixth song, laid down with an acoustic guitar track, to which will be added more tracks and the lyrics–adapted from the sonnet below. Please feel free to play the guitar music and read the poem for now … Later, the whole song will appear! May the music and the words that are here today encourage your heart.
BIRD-WATCHER’S DIARY ENTRY
ON TWO SWANS
6 May 2009 – Western Michigan University, Kzoo, MI
I went for a walk by the pond at night
and I saw the swans, two noble swans, she
sitting in her spreading nest of dry reeds,
he swimming through the still waters calmly.
A fountain illuminated by light
was splashing in the center of the pond,
beautiful in the darkness and quite bright,
which made me wonder, as I wandered on
if the swans were irritated at night
since even if they closed their eyes, they could
not truly sleep, deep, all their dreams full
of light, and I wasn’t sure that was good.
Very late last night, those swans were awake,
made visible by a light in their lake.
Jane Beal
The Bird-Watcher’s Diary Entries (2010)
BIRD-WATCHER'S DIARY 