To be a hungry heron
is to stilt along the shore with searching legs;
to press those three-toed prints among the muddied
buttercups, the sedge;
to edge towards the morning brimmed in gold.
Settled now, some wizardry dissolves the watchful stillness
into air,
transforms the brooding bulk into a shadow,
cloaked in lavender.
Sudden a stab, a jab, a flag-yellow bill;
a whip-lash of silvered agony, jagged into leaping air,
smothers and gasps
and slides down the long strong throat of oblivion.
To be a hungry heron is to strike each fish ecstatic,
dagger-dead.
To be a hungry heron is to gather mantled wings;
to shake the careless pearls from cool, cascading neck;
to rip the watered silk, the peace, apart.
To be a hungry heron is to stalk the savage morning with a
sword.
(April, 1983)
