To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so shifting is that it’s a residing spell in opposition to abandonment. Nobody is leaving and nobody is being left on this unison of motion alongside a vector of frequent function. It’s the solely occasion I do know of a transition that isn’t a rupture however an affirmation of a bond — an immense household of beings magnetized collectively by unassailable belonging, ruled by the fundamental life-force pulsating beneath each eager for connection and communion.
And but no spell in opposition to abandonment can ever defend us from essentially the most terrifying and most sure of losses. This, in reality, is why the connection rupture is so psychologically painful — each abandonment is a miniature of dying.
Japanese artist and storyteller Keizaburō Tejima brings unusual tenderness to this bittersweet inevitability of life in his 1988 e book Swan Sky (public library) — a soulful addition to one of the best youngsters’s books about making sense of loss, lensed by means of the migration of swans.
Partway in time and sensibility between Hasui Kawase and Nikki McClure, Tejima’s woodcuts rise from the web page stark and delicate as a baby’s expertise of change.
The story begins in a faraway lake, the place the swans winter “till the wind is laced with the primary heat of spring.” Yr after yr, when that second comes, they carry off as one immense V to soar collectively towards their summer season dwelling within the north, filling the sky with their historical cries.
For so long as they’ll keep in mind, that is what they’ve accomplished.
However this specific spring, one of many younger swans stays curled up on the water’s edge, unable to fly away with the remaining.
Her household stays together with her lengthy after the opposite swans have left. However irrespective of how they coax the little swan, she merely tucks her head into her smooth, heat wings.
Because the snow melts and the miniature suns of petal and pistil cowl the land in bloom, the younger swan retains mendacity nonetheless and quiet. One night time, wanting on the Moon, her father faces the unimaginable choice of doing what’s finest for the household.
By morning, the remaining swans have risen into the sky, calling out to the toddler with their unhappy sonorous cries, solely to listen to her cry again that she can’t go.
And they also do. (There isn’t a sorrow for a kid just like the sorrow of being left.)
The younger swan watches them fly away over the nonetheless, nonetheless water.
Quickly the swans disappear past the mountains. The younger swan’s final goodbye echoes throughout the empty lake. She is alone.
However then, immediately, a white constellation emerges from behind the crest of the mountain — her household has returned for her.
As they collect round her within the moonlight that night time, the little swan buries her head into her feathers and falls asleep.
By morning, she has died.
At dawn, heavy with grief, the swans who beloved her carry off into the sky. (There isn’t a sorrow for a dad or mum just like the sorrow of dropping a baby.)
Once they arrive within the north, all the opposite swans have begun nesting. However to the bereaved household, “the land feels empty.”
Then, because the chilly morning mild breaks by means of with the promise of summer season heat, they really feel a presence take form within the clouds — the form of reminiscence, the form of affection, an echo of Hemingway’s insistence, in consoling his buddies who had misplaced their younger son, that “nobody you’re keen on is ever lifeless.”
Complement Swan Sky with The Blue Songbird — a young Japanese-inspired picture-book about discovering your means dwelling — and a penguin’s antidote to abandonment, then revisit Emily Dickinson on love and loss.
