Perfect Poet Award from Jingle–10/8/10

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Perfect Poet’s Award from Jingle: 10/8/10–Thank You

Desert Swan: a Haiku

An errant golf ball

killed our peaceful desert swan.

Serenity died.

Sorry to do a sad one but when I saw the image I had to memorialize the beautiful swan we lost last year. Our home  (my mother’s, actually) in Palm Desert is on the 12th hole of a golf course, a water hazard. When I first began visiting my parents there, in the early 1980’s, there was a pair of swans. A few years later, the female was hit by a car, and the male remained alone. His job was to spar with the mallards who would visit, scaring them off to another hole. Last year my cousin came to visit and told us, when he arrived, that he thought something was the matter with the swan…indeed, there was. He’d been cold-cocked by a golf ball. It’s hard to describe the beauty he used to bring in the early morning hours when the rising sun cast a glow on the Santa Rosa Mountains, and reflected back onto the still water. He has not been replaced, to our chagrin.