At the Glass Factory in Cavan Town Today it is a swan:                           The guide tells us these are in demand.                          The glass is made of red lead and potash                          and the smashed bits of crystal sinews                          and decanter stoppers crated over there —                          she points — and shattered on the stone wheel                          rimmed with emery. Aromas of stone and                          fire. Deranged singing from the grindstone.                          And behind that a mirror — my                          daughters' heads turned away in it — garnering                          grindstone and fire. The glass blower goes                          to the furnace. He takes a pole                          from the earth's core: the earth's core                          is remembered in the molten globe at                          the end of it. He shakes the pole                          carefully to and fro. He blows once. Twice.                          His cheeks puff and puff up: he is                          a cherub at the very edge of a cornice with                          a mouthful of zephyrs — sweet intrusions into                          leaves and lace hems. And now he lays                          the rod on its spindle. It is red. It is                          ruddy and cooler. It is cool now                          and as clear as the distances of this                          county with its drumlins, its herons, its closed-                          in waterways on which we saw this morning                          as we drove over here, a mated pair of swans. Such blind grace as they                          floated with told us they did not know                          that every hour, every day, and                          not far away from there, they were                          entering the legend of themselves. They gave no                          sign of it. But what caught my eye, my                          attention, was the safety they assumed as                          they sailed their own images. Here, now —                          and knowing that the mirror still holds                          my actual flesh — I could say to them:                          reflection is the first myth of loss. But                          they floated away and away from me as if                          no one would ever blow false airs on them,                          or try their sinews in the fire, at                          the core, and they took no care                          not to splinter, they showed no fear                          they would end as this one which is                          uncut yet still might: a substance of its own                          future form, both fraction and refraction                          in the deal-wood crate at the door                          we will leave by.