A black swan glides

through the reflected sky

as Margaret sketches

the gentle black curve of neck
from the riverbank.
 

Margaret remembers

the potter’s wheel turn,

in the hospital after the war,

the clay molded by the soldier’s hands,

the tremble gone

just for a moment.
 
Sometimes in Margaret’s dreams

the soldier reaches up

into a banksia tree

to pick the bright orange blossom

which has somehow captured the sun

in the dark blue night.