Some time before sunset

All morning I have walked the banks
Of the salt marsh welcoming the lamentations
In a quiet way, sotto voce greetings
To testaments of another autumn turning
From swan feathers to early October snow.

Days hence will find them farther south.
These aromatic waters will skin over
With a burgeoning patina of ice and
Silence will prepare the whole of us
For the advent of darkness that endures

Until March. Welcome too will be that silence
And its dark partner backlighting aurora borealis.
Winter is a season to reflect upon the generations
Of trumpeter swans these brush-lined banks have known,
Of the seasons comprising this generation that knows me.

Yesterday is but an imagination,
An imperfect memory, and tomorrow never comes.
There is only this frosty morning and these rarities
Replenishing their strength for further journeys. There is
My regard of all this before me and a fervent desire to endure the dark.