Swan cubs and Trampoline
Trampoline
There was a child
who barely managed
to climb up on a trampoline
in a garden in
the middle of the night.
Then she stood there,
hands on each side and
practiced not jumping.
Not a single human noticed her
but the grass grew a little faster
as if it wanted to get up
to the child
and her silent game.
- Look, this is how quiet I can be,
the child said to a star in the sky
but
then
the dogs started barking
several alarms went off
light was lit all over the house
someone came out with a flashlight
swinging it around like a gun
and everyone, who were in the shadows,
got hit hard instantly.
The entire garden withdrew.
The child, already far away down the street,
and further off through a sideway
occupied with clenching a
small lump of her own darkness
ran and ran
until she found her cave again.
Inside the cave
grass grew directly from the stone floor
and it enshrouded her completely
in a cocoon of green beginnings.
When she woke up again
all the bats around her
hanging from the ceiling
opened their eyes too.
- It’s time to fly, the night said quietly
and it was as if there was a star
in each of her cells
when the fluttering started up.
Swan cubs
There were six swan cubs on the path
and on each side their parents, protectors
were ready to hiss and be threatening to anyone
who came too close.
This scenery surely had stopped several people
in their tracks, one man with a giant poodle on a leash
looked especially worried, that poodle with a lot of curly
hair cut like a bouquet with no individual flowers.
One man who arrived at the spot was “not going to take it”
so he passed the swans and their cubs trying to look cool,
which was very funny and if I could recognize him again some day,
I would thank him for the entertainment.
The swan cubs were lying there as if in an invisible nest and then
the man and the giant poodle were the next ones to try to
get by with some dignity or in an elegant way or whatever was
the ambition there, but it was clumsy and he got a real hiss on his way.
They are just trying to protect their cubs, I said, as if it was not obvious
and he said that he understood that but they really scared him,
he was very honest, not trying to be cool, behind me a young couple
was still waiting for some clue to go, for their turn.
Then a woman came running before making a full stop right behind me, asking
if she could get by them, and I said yes, but you will probably be hissed at, then
I realized that this was my clue to start moving, so I did with her right behind me
slowly moving past this swan family, I got a hiss that was more of a symbol than a threat.
The woman thanked me shortly and ran off again, and there were
some seconds where I just felt like a happy merging between a gentleman
and a human shield, and this path, sometimes I forget it exists before walking
there again, it always makes me so calm with its green explosion of leaves.
It will soon be the season for blackberries and on this path there are plenty
and the scratches one gets from the thorns are not only unavoidable but
part of such a day, ending with a basket full, on my way back today
I looked forward to that and smiled when I saw that the swan cubs were still there.
They had not moved an inch and
they radiated being so safe in their own time, so fluffy and grey,
it was a soft zone carefully molded by gentle wings,
an invisible fence made of swan spirit clay.
Rune Kjær Rasmussen
is an animist, writer, singer, and occasional painter from Denmark.