With a swan wing…
I miss the sound of swan wings beating against the cold grey sky, long necks out-stretched and the rhythmic whoop-whoop-whoop as they each pass by, each following the one that flies before it, each one heading out into the mystery – beak-first.
As I knit the sleeves of this large jumper with the slightly scratchy wool, I’ve been thinking a lot about swan wings. Most specifically about the 12th brother from the Wild Swans who drew the short straw and donned the unfinished nettle jacket with the one sleeve, his misfortune worn ever after as a solitary swan wing hinged at the shoulder. Part human, domestic, tame, civilised, socially-aware, and part animal, wild, instinctual, unrestrained, free. How it must have felt to have straddled the two worlds of birds and men so visibly, unable to hide either self – the human or the wild. Always seeking the balance point and never finding it – or perhaps, only in dreams.
For I do believe that within we all hold our wild. This natural instinctual self that barks, howls, squawks, purrs and roars through our desires – both spoken and unspoken. But we are taught to rein it in. Make nice. Behave ourselves. Use our “indoor voice”. And so the wild within, the untameable, unnameable part of us, remains leashed and silenced and still. In this way, we move throughout our days pretending that we are civilised grown-ups when really the wild is calling us to return to our instinctual soft animal of our bodies.
And then I think, once again, of the swan brother with his solitary swan wing – his constant reminder of this wild self, this swan self – fierce and beautiful and limitless and free. How to carry this wild as we step out into the relational world of manners and mores, our swan wing protruding from our sleeve, awkwardly placed, the body held in self-conscious poses as though one doesn’t quite know what to do with oneself? How to carry this wild swan self? How to carry this swan wing?
