A poem 15 years in the making

Swans At Portsmouth, On a Receding Tide

That woman on the shore is staring at us,
Her eyes like saucers in her rain-washed face;
Perhaps she wonders why we paddle wildly,

Only to remain in the same place.

She wandered over here, while her companions
Explored aboard the ship called Victory.
Inside that little shop, out of the downpour,

She might have sheltered with a cup of tea;

Instead she stands there dripping, spies upon us,
And makes us awkward in our exercise;

It's hard enough to concentrate on paddling,

Without the scrutiny of foreign eyes.

Why do we struggle in this muddy water,
Performing an insane impromptu dance?
The tide would bear us farther off from England,

And leave us shivering on the coast of France;

And that wet, dripping, maybe weeping woman
May sense that swans, and humans even more,

Must paddle, row and swim with all their power

Against the terrors of an unknown shore.

Our wings are strong, and human wings are stronger,

And yet the weight we carry weighs us down;

And though we're left hip-deep in mud and gravel,

We did our damnedest, and we didn't drown.

By JRC, September 10, 2012

Maybe sometime I can make a better last line, but that's all I could think of at the moment.

*

5:10 p.m.: I've already thought of a better last line: "The distant shore may be a paradise." So I have to redo the whole last stanza. Back to the drawing board.