Marc Isaac Potter
Blue-tailed Swan
The blue-tailed swan
And I refer here
Especially to the one
Midwesterners call
The Michigan
Blue-tailed swan
Because it stays,
Ever so briefly in
Samachaw
Michigan
For only a few days in late December
On its migratory journey to the Yukon Territory . . .
. . . that particular blue swan
is said to turn its head as it sits in the
big oak trees around Lake Fawn Shee Haa
. . . it is said to turn
and look toward
Its very pale tail
and caw like a crow . . .
ever so briefly mind you
during its respite
in Upper Michigan,
of course, how would
we know, really
we humans who track everything
we are not in fact on board the flight to
the Yukon Territory . . .
whether one of the two
leader birds
in their unique
double V-formation
says to the leader
of the other part
of the famous
double V formation
hey Harriet
let’s stop up here
and visit the
Canadian Rambast Quail
This Canadian quail
Being an entirely
Misnamed bird . . .
It is not in the quail family
And is much too small
To be any kind of
Quail, . . . rather,
It is in the crow family.
Myth has it that
Santa jaunts down to
The Yukon Territory
Just a hop skip and a jump really
From the southern part of the North Pole . . .
Myth has it he talks to the birds,
The swans . . . that is to say,
Harriet and her younger
Brother Ned
And they give Santa something of a
Report as to how things are going . . .
So many birds bring their reports
Through the “pale tail”
Michigan Blue-Tail Swan
In particular mind you . . .
And even
The reports of
The animals with whom they associate
For example the
Trappeter White Lion,
Indeed a rare breed
Is said to tell the birds of his native La Nosha
How he feels things are going in regard to
The Children of La Nosha,
What the humans call the Congo . . .
He gives a report to the birds of the area
And they work it out
So that by the time the
Blue-tailed swans
Get to the Yukon
They are carrying the news of nearly the entire
World . . .
One year some birds
In southwestern Rhode Island refused to
Participate
And it is true seven
Children in
Two households,
Or rather one and a half households
I guess, depending on the way you count them . . .
One household is a treehouse
Of particularly
Sturdy construction
Having
Weatherproofing and such
Those children got their presents
In the latest part of the
Christmas morning
We are saying the red secondhand was sweeping
It’s way Ever so
Precisely intently . . .
Like an old janitor’s
Broom
Toward—
. . . leaning ever and ever more closely,
Never quite touching
Absolute Noon
And by Absolute Noon I mean
12:00:00 [ read twelve zero zero . . . zero zero ]
On Christmas morning
So if you are a bird
And you are reading this poem . . .
No one is letting you just
Walk away from your duties to
Inform
Whomever you are supposed to tell
Giving the information
We call
The Blue Swan Report,
And rightly so . . .
. . . That crow-like call
By the way . . .
It is said to be these words:
“Final Leg . . .
the final leg of the journey
let’s go . . .”
You’d think
they would
throw in a
“God’s speed”
in there or something,
but who can agree on
to whom the word god would be referring . . .
At the moment of
That famous bird call we were mentioning . . .
The lake
Is said to create moderately
Large waves,
The waves signal
All the blue swans in all the
Oak trees around
Lake Fawn Shee Haa
Have properly
Received the call
And off they all go
All the Michigan Blue-Tail Swans
Over
the Canadian border . . .
Are there lions in the Congo? (Yes.)
Are there oak trees in upper Michigan? (Yes, some white oak, but not where the soil
drains poorly.)
Lakes of UP (Upper Peninsula is Upper Michigan). “The U.P. also is home
to 4,300 inland lakes.”
Map of Lakes of Upper Michigan