Blue Heron

While we were eating breakfast on the deck this morning, a Great Blue Heron flew in and landed at the back of our small pond and carefully made its way along the back shoreline, under overhanging trees.  This has happened before.  In honor of the event, I am sharing a poem a wrote a few years ago entitled Great Blue:

GREAT BLUE

A ballerina-legged bird

often stands near our pond,

sheltered by black pussy willows.

Her body puffs out

like a fringed tutu

and plumes of stringy

hair-like feathers

fan from head and neck

with a rakish air.

A fleshless, skeletal leg

raises elegantly,

bending at the knee

as the heron steals along

stalking frogs

or fish.

Statuesque among

the pickerelweed,

she sees us

and glares with disdain

down the slender supercilious beak.

With a deep squat she unfolds

uncanny long wings and

emits a throaty, guttural

Thwack! thwack! during lift-off.

Circling over our house,

she glides through

the trees towards

the shallow water beaver pond

and a new fishing place.