Blue Heron

Bird of statue grace
in slo-mo stalks the pontoon boat
lashed down for the season
reveling in his patch of sun
studying coal black water
shoulders hunched in search
a silhouette and shadow
emblematic of a life
lethal to the fish he stalks
down within the leaves
sheltered there by warm decay
until a chancing sun might tease them higher, rise to light
yanked into oblivion
by one diving spike.

Tuxedo gray
despite his common name extenuated elegance, a single
note sustained, that focused
on his meal. Lethal grace
some say rapture’s death
I say Beauty is a slender blade.

Famed artist with his bad eye
spinning clay in dull decline
slapping mud against the wheel
does he still waffle on humanity
like Hamlet, does his wit still run
to thickets of such irony?

Poised beside this edge
by waters feeding life
taken for our own needs
heart and mind as clever
ungainly not as graceful
on our own more lethal
I cry in time delay
pleading for his flight.

December ‘02