all the gold in the world

Lovely intangible carefreedom.
The evening light is like some lost day of childhood.
With a little imagination I'm right back in the Summer of 1976.
A gracious innocence shines over everything.
I'd almost thought this feeling could no longer exist.
Like Eden before the fall.
All of the evils of the world had made me forget that the power of God is still here, still beautful, still eternal.
The lake water is rippling full of the setting sun.
A cool breeze stirs the leaves.
People are strolling.
It's perfect.
Six baby swans, all downy and cute, are snuggled together, eyes shut, amid bracken at the water's edge near the bench where I sit.
A mother swan is standing on the path, occasionally issuing warning signs to passers by who wander too close to her little ones.
The big swan looks at me.
Then she enters the water.
"Wait," I say.
She paddles off.
This is unusual.
They don't normally leave the babies.
The mother flaps her wings in the middle of the lake and rises out of the water.
She doesn't quite take off but she builds up quite a speed, skimming over the surface.
Now she's really gone.
"This is too much responsibility," I murmur plaintively, watching the sleeping babies.
Mid way down the lake she veers into shore.
There is another adult swan there.
She is with him for a moment.
Then ever so gradually she turns in the water and begins moving back towards me.
The other swan follows her.
What an odd vignette.
It's as though she actually left me to mind the babies while she went to fetch her mate.
They take their time swimming back.
Presently they pull up abreast of me off shore and wait.
The little ones awake and one by one file happily into the water where they form a little flotilla, a line of six, between the mother in front and the father behind.
They sail away into the golden lake.