Before dawn, the group by-passes abandoned dairy buildings,
drinks warm coffee, discusses the plan for the day. The land trust
employee will lead along the trail. Talk softly, do not startle
the swans. They sleep in this foothill lake, awaken to forage
lowland fields. We stay together through newly planted evergreens,
arrive at the steeped shore and scatter. Dots of white appear, we hear
slaps of wings on water. Grief and joy are contained in these plumy,
pulsing bodies. Joy, being light, a shock of wild hope. A friend
once described grief as a weight, like an anchor, that can’t be untied.
Grief is a leveed estuary choking on sediment, farms leveled under
asphalt. A lamentation of swans, leaving. What do these migratory
visitors see over ecotones and the man-made lines etched on landscape?
Like an apparition, my wordless wisps of breath float out to the cold lake.
A beaver saunters by his lodge, begins to chew. He’s lived here all along.
—
Jessica Gigot is a poet, farmer, and writing coach. She lives on a little sheep farm in the Skagit Valley. Her second book of poems, Feeding Hour (Wandering Aengus Press, 2020) was a finalist for the 2021 Washington State Book Award. Jessica’s writing and reviews appear in several publications, such as Orion, Ecotone, Terrain.org, and Poetry Northwest. She is currently a poetry editor for The Hopper. Her memoir, A Little Bit of Land, was published by Oregon State University Press in September 2022.
