Three swans in close formation suddenly appeared over our terrace in the early evening. The weight of their bodies blotted the sky between the Reading Abbey ruins and the neighboring office buildings. The whistle of their wings drowned our thoughts long after they had swung behind the sinking office buildings and disappeared.

Addendum (January 22, 2000)

Today I watched swans on the Thames near the Caversham Bridge in Reading, where they always gather in numbers. Perhaps a hundred of them can be found there at any one time, some in the water and some on the bank of the river, and one can often see small groups of people feeding them. Every time one or more swans would fly to this spot, or fly away from it, the sound of those powerful wings would surprise me anew. Indeed, these birds are so huge, and so awkward on land, that one cannot but be surprised to see them fly at all. The two surprises combine into something approaching awe.