Have you ever held a cygnet? It’s a delicate, fragile thing. Its wings, (wings that will grow to give it a span of up to 2 metres!) are like tiny twigs. They are fantasy wings. Wings in thought only. Its body is too heavy for its webbed feet. It stumbles, trips, finds itself squashed to the earth by the weakness in its spindly legs. It is covered in the softest down, like velvet, but forget I said velvet, because velvet is static and inert. The down on a cygnet drifts, like a cloud. What is nature playing at? HOW, does this puff of grey grow to be a swan?
I ask this because on Sunday, as J and I drove up the lane on our way to a Father’s Day picnic, I saw a crow lift into the air from the edge of the irrigation dam. I’d been looking for the resident pair of swans who have just hatched their early spring clutch. Instead what I saw was an impossibly ambitious, opportunistic crow with a snatch of grey in its beak. It flapped hard, but the grey was too heavy and it fell to the earth.
Did you see that? I turned to J. I’m incredulous. He’s listening to the footy commentary on the radio. What?
That crow had a cygnet! Pull up!
I hop out of the ute. Unfortunately I do not see Dusty, my Labrador, jump off the back. I climb through the fence. There, in the tall grass, is a cygnet, it’s drunkenly flopping, bleating. But before I have a chance to pick it up Dusty pounces and has the cygnet in her mouth. I yell, and it’s a scream from deep in me, it spits with desperation. My yelling has stopped her biting down. I flick it from her jaws. I’m furious. I pick the cygnet up. I can’t tell if it’s the crow, the fall from high or the almost crunch of the dog’s jaw, but it doesn’t struggle as I wrap it in my jumper.
There’s a few lines from a poem by Ada Limon that keeps trawling through my head:
What I didn’t know before
was how horses simply give birth to other
horses. Not a baby by any means, not
a creature of liminal spaces, but already
a four-legged beast hellbent on walking,
scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way
to another horse and then suddenly there are
two horses, just like that.
I know this for lambs and calves and foals. But it’s not so for cygnets. It’s not so for human babies either.
Swans mate for life. After the breeding season, when the youngsters have their feathers, they form large flocks, sometimes in their thousands. They fly long distances, in a V formation. Their necks outstretched. Through the night. A migration. I imagine them, a tribe of swans on the move.
After our Father’s Day picnic. After the adored grandchild has left, her parents coaxing her to wave her cute goodbye, we head inside. I text my daughter, who is in her 5th year of Vet Science. What do I feed a baby swan?
I receive an eye rolling emoji, Glad you asked, we have spent a week on baby swans and how to care for them. I reply with palms pressed together.
Googling, she says.
The instructions come. Not chick raiser. Not too much protein. Ideally I should go and get a muddy scoop of water filled with midges and tadpoles. Grasses from the edge of the dam with mud attached. I tap into my phone - it’s dark and the temperature outside is about 5 degrees. She replies, finely grated carrot for vitamin C, chop some spinach, a tiny dash of fish food, but don’t over do it. A heat lamp. Don’t let it walk. Keep it quiet and still.
I follow instructions. Place it in a box with some straw, slice a leaf of spinach and carrot in shallow water, a sprinkle of fish food, place a heat lamp above it and leave it by the fire.
I dream of swans, underwater gardeners, grazing the bottom of lakes and dams, the shores of bays. They call in high pitched musical notes. Later, when I’m deeper in sleep they croon to me, a tinkling through my dreams until I wake, realising its the baby calling beside the fire.
I turn the light on. It’s just before dawn. The swan, can I call it this? has chased the finely chopped spinach, swallowed the flakes of fish food and snapped at the orange strands of carrot. Its voice is loud. I stoke the fire. Refresh its water. Wonder at its softness. Repeat my instructions to the dogs - the peeping baby is off limits!
I do my work. When I’m finished I tie the dogs up. I wrap the tiny swan in a towel and carry it out to the dam. On the way I’m more aware of the birds talking to each other than normal. A pair of mountain ducks who have been considering a waterhole to nest beside, take off, they circle once, and let everything know I am on the move. The tiny swan keeps wriggling out of the towel. It’s so much stronger today. High above me on up drafts of air an eagle circles. I sneak up the bank of the dam. From the edge I look and cannot see the swan parents. I slowly straighten. A pair of Musk Ducks see me and dive. One surfaces and smashes his heavy tail on the surface of the dam. STRANGER DANGER. The swans are in the lee of the small island in the middle of the dam. They too trumpet their alarm. I sink below the bank. I message J who is in the sheep yards, I need a boat. This is not going to work. I let the little swan loose. It snaps at the grass, its eyes are alert for a midge. I peak over the edge of the dam wall. The parents and the 1 remaining cygnet are back near the island. There’s a keen wind. I message J again, which is the shallowest way out to the island? I wait. Out of the wind the sun is warm. Two jenny wrens and a superbly blue breasted male call to all the small birds that I am here. A cranky fantail hops from the fence wire to the gorse bush and back, scolding. The small swan tears at the grass. J replies, north west corner is the shallowest.
I pick the baby swan up and wade into the water. I keep my boots on because the island is overgrown with rank grass and I’m not crossing it without boots. The water is cold, but I’ve just spent 3 days swimming off Flinders Island and it doesn’t really worry me. The closer I get to the island the deeper the water gets, then just as I think I am going to have swim the ground angles up and I push through the reeds on the edge of the island. It’s only a little island, but the grass, ungrazed, is tall and rank.I give thanks its too cold to worry about snakes.
The parent swans have heard me and have pushed off into the deep water. I stand under the willow, florescent in its early spring fuzz. I put the baby on the edge of the dam. It launches itself, no longer clumsy, into the water. The wind picks it up and in seconds it’s in an expanse of open water too big for its small life. But it calls and the wind carries the sound. The two swan parents turn as one. They must be 50 metres away, but one leaves the other and positively levitates towards the cygnet. I’m crouched on the bank. The big bird moves so fast it is upon the cygnet in the tiniest twirl of time. The little grey puff of life attaches itself to the lee of the swan. They turn as one. I’m left on the bank, soaking wet and thrilled.
In Britain, killing a swan is still seen as something akin to treason. They are emblems of the monarchy, and by extension the nation. Not so here. Oh they are protected. But our collective imagination does not hold them in reverence.
I want that for them.
*
Reading
Loved this essay by Kate Fullagar on the burial places of Bennelong and Arthur Phillip. I’m haunting the letter box waiting for this novel to land. I read Emily Maguire’s new book Love Objects in a gulp on my kindle. It’s both a page turner and changed the way I thought about hoarding. Her characters, especially Nic, have stayed with me. My friend Meg has a once a month newsletter Reasons to Be Cheerful you’ll get a giggle if you subscribe - but this month she linked to an essay by Sarah Sentilles in the Griffith Review. It’s on art, activism and utopia. If you’re a maker of things, well…read it.
Listening
My week was made listening to George Saunders read his new short story. It’s all the things I love about his writing. Funny, deep, incisive.
I have a weak spot for a banjo and the On Being poddy is rereleasing their most popular episodes. If you have not listened to this episode with Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn…well, you’re lucky, because it is a delight. And! they have updated clips of fabulous banjo playing. Even more than that, this episode is a deep dive into the way music makes a mockery of our tightly drawn ideas of nationhood.
Writing
Well it has been a week. I am on target to send my manuscript for the new book off to the big bosses on Friday. If you would like a taster check out the Spring edition of Graziher where I’ve got an extract from the diary on which my new book is based. I’ve also had an amazing few days over on Flinders Island researching an essay, so stay tuned for that.
This time next week we will be into lambing. Fingers and toes are crossed, we should have a good season. There’s water in the creeks and dams, the grass is starting to ping and the ewes are in great condition.
Mx
Thanks Maggie, for real, earthy, grounded, magnificent soul food. You've made my day.
So beautiful! I opened your email and my distracted mind was telling me move on to the next email, you don’t have time to read, but your wonderful writing sucked me in and stilled my monkey mind. I had to find out what happened…….. thank you