Flight of the heron

Poetry wanders in the spaces in between the stars

and in the interstitial spaces deep in the folds of your brain.

Or I might simply say that Poetry is in the air.

And, of course, there is so much nonsense

and so little truth in this definition

that I have really only spoken of my ignorance.

It’s not that I have not wracked and pondered

and watched and waited for understanding.

And then I was walking across the bridge

and a heron took off from the shallows

and instead of a lazy, low, flap and glide

to the other side, he dug in his wings,

pulling hard against the air.

Building speed, he flew,

and hard he turned,

still grasping every molecule of air

and pushing them straight behind him.

The lowering sun shown off every gray feather

and his hard pointed bill thrust forward as he passed.

The strong winds buffeted his body

and he corrected his course,

until finally gaining the levee

the heron turned again, not resting,

wings moving with purposeful grace,

back toward the center of the river,

and then yet one more turn he took.

And that heron beat on and on,

finally headed straight down the river,

not having taken what would have seemed to me

to be a more straightforward path.

The heron spoke no words.

And it was not, after all, for my benefit that he flew.

Yet I paused in my thoughts

to watch that heron fly.