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Great Blue
As though it held its pose for Audubon,
a heron stands at the far end of the marsh,
hoi-polloi of white-ringed ducks drifting past it.
A blackbird picks, all business, over the mud,
then flames out its wings like red silk lingerie.
Low tide, weeks of drought, and except for those wings,
everything's muted: ducks, asters, rabbit's foot clover.
Dead trees at the horizon are the heron's silver-grey.
My mother once told me you see indigo buntings
in these roadside thickets. With the usual pain at my heart
for all I didn't give her, I smile to myself,
adjust the binoculars. Too sensible, after all,
--as she was-- not to take joy where I can catch it,
as the heron decides to take one stately step,
then, loosely gathered, flies up over the marsh.
Susan Donnelly (Click for bio.)