The road dropped down along the shoreline before moving behind sparse woods, undulating up, then down, in, then away, playing tag with the open water. The swans were still ahead of me, sheltering in tree lined shallows from the blustery February wind. Through the first break I couldn't see them. More trees, another small bay, then through the wintering black columns I saw one swan, then another! Then three more! In total seven beautiful swans feeding and drifting on the heavy slate colored water. These weren't the pair I had seen from the hill a half-mile back. This group was in a cove closer to the highway, and seemed to be maintaining a necessary distance from the pair I had first seen.

By now I was almost stopped, only driving forward for the promise of a clearer line of sight to the birds. Drinking in the sight of them, like sweet clear water. It was a moment of satori. A moment of communion. Nine swans linking for a moment their lives and mine. Telling me the story of their being. Translated mind to mind. There were no words then; those are coming only now.

The next day I came back, and observed the same social order of seven unattached young adults and two with no need for the others. Three days later I again passed by the Loch, this time in the darkness of a cloudy night. I could just make out the ghostly whiteness of one or two swans out there on the choppy water. It was out of curiosity, a curious bond, that I came back the next morning and saw the pair in their cove, the seven juveniles gone. Maybe this pair had chosen to nest on Loch Mary; while the younger unmated birds moved on. That might have been the case, though I didn't think so; this area seems too populated and/or too warm for these big birds. A week later, the pair is gone.

It's March now, I drive by going to visit my friend and her daughters. She's still gathering her life around her, still preparing to fly away to the perceived richer waters of somewhere. While I as a fading metaphor, drift on the rippling blue waters of Loch Mary.