Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

Stock-still, in perfect discipline,

beak like a saber, thighs as thin

as summer cattail reeds, he’s drawn

to faintest flash of scale or fin.

He’s mindful of all goings-on,

and spots a movement, whereupon

he strikes the dinner plate near shore.

His neck unbends. The fish is gone.

It slipped down whole. And now, once more,

he stands en garde, as if at war,

bearing his sword, a feathered knight,

for other things he’d love to gore.

Then off he flies through what will fight

whatever aims to reach a height

that even eagles seldom win,

and he is lost in cumu-light.

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(Appeared in Cahoodaloodaling and The Society of Classical Poets)