Hope And The Black Swan Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

It seems you tried to kill the black swan
That was defending the underworld river
But that you drowned in death itself -
Though your mother raked up
Your dismembered rotting corpse
Sewing you together and adding honey
To bring you back to life.

Whatever!

Laid down mortal on a bed of lettuce
Gored as you were by a boar
Or shot as you were with a spear
Cut from mistletoe
Or an arrow cut from a tamarisk tree
In far Cathay - fatal strength in beauty
We have need of your return.

The demons have been set upon you
As the sun falls to winter
And the oak becomes bare:
The perfect boy, the perfect son
The once and future king
Who may rise again in glory
A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice.

You who were put to death on a crosstree
Of elder, cedar, olive or dogwood -
Whence bloomed below the anemone
The white lily, the daffodil, the rose.
Your resurrection gave us hope -
Now more than ever
We have need of your return.

Regardless

That what I have outlined about the nature of hope
Is highly improbable and no doubt
Part of the human tendency
To seek simplistic aspirations
For rare and redeeming events.
That said, we have need of you -
Stitching together regrowth and florescence
And their inherent unexpected weaknesses
In facing the black swan of oblivion.