#heron
You've seen the eel twice now
I saw it once on
Our weekend walk and
I have to say, it was genuinely thrilling
Mysterious and often overlooked
Perhaps lost in the
Ornamental canal
Some distance from the river now
Sharing water with ducks, swans, a small
Fish family, the lonely heron
And those crab carcasses which are
A mystery unto themselves
Jul 1, 2025
Jul 1, 2025 at 6:42 AM UTC
The blossoms are calm, and yet still, she sings for
the heavens within, the white heron bows to the sea water,
It sees the clouds of night touched by lunar wind, the
lucid paintings of seagrass contemplate the presence of the
poet floating upon the waters, and say to her, “you too, have wings”,
the lights beneath her as dewdrops, bright as cricket melody, the lone lantern glows in the silent hour of all, where the artist’s senses awaken as ripples of butterflies opening, the petals in far flight ask her, “are you I?” , her starry form is light upon the mirror of the moon, a ghost of time and being, the beauty of imperfection decorated her as the
stars, the heron asked her, “your nature is delicate as my feathers, why did you wish to hide?” she sung back “I hid because I was afraid, I loved in a world of no love, I realize now, to reveal the amygdala that lives in color is to be brave in a world of grey, to be delicate is a strength, to have tears is to have power, to paint your emotions through eyes and lips is grace, being is the greatest gift” she perceived her revelation, “I am human, in solace with both light and dark”, her hands floated upon the water, the sounds of the ocean echo the endless journey, she becomes the milky amber dream, night has turned to day, the flower of the sea has found her abode in the one whom has loved her before existence, she spoke not, for all the songs have already been sung,
the eons have spoken, softly, she folds her eyelids in the heavenly warmth, there is only her whisper, “I have returned to you when I was never lost”
Aug 24, 2020
Aug 24, 2020 at 9:09 AM UTC
Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.
I wrote this poem for a great blue heron who visits a pond that I pass on my daily walks — a truly majestic bird and the ultimate spear-fisher.
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 7:40 PM UTC
As white as the snow that is yet to come
And as delicate as a fallen autumn leaf
A Heron patiently waits like a philosopher lost in thought
Jan 26, 2019
Jan 26, 2019 at 9:23 AM UTC
Basking in the sun
Savoring bliss of solitude
Heron on one leg
Oct 27, 2018
Oct 27, 2018 at 10:59 AM UTC
Snug in the trance of your solitude,
you whoosh through the silver clouds
like a Sphene meteorite
lighting up a green fluorescent trail,
while the music in your soul
dance to the phantom glow of the stars
that lullaby you on your numinous path.
You came to roost in the frigid dreams
of a callous winter that haunts my soul,
to paint mysterious charms in my yearnings.
Your eloquent 'kyowks' entrance me -
I long to fly with you
on your pilgrimage
through the silver clouds
to a land beyond the frostiness of this callous winter!
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 6:53 AM UTC
Piercing Eyes of Goldenrod.
Both bold and brilliant.
The calming center in a hurrricane
Of blue and white feathers.
A gaze which levels any ego,
That should find itself too
Important, in either size or space.
(Do you believe in omens?)
Rebirth is on the horizon,
Or so the star seekers say.
Change, the end of old ways, days.
(But I'd not think it)
The Universe likes to share whispers,
Of things to come or happenings of maybe.
There is no intent ill or otherwise,
Just the honest grievances of time.
As this God of Death, sits high upon
Stilts which bathe in still waters,
I see horror. I see despair. I see death.
That vision, those eyes, golden and
Sinister, but humble all the same.
While the winds sing of new life,
I hear the sorrowful hymns of death.
(Balance.)
There are many ways of knowing.
Magic both black and white.
Magic old as time, as new as a moment.
And if I should see the dark days ahead,
Count that a blessing, to see anything at all.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 12:04 PM UTC
majestic white herons,a siege,
spring up, winging skywards
in unison, as if according to a
well designed rescue plan,
following a disaster,
scattering to all directions
from a tree,a flame of the forest
imposing and wildly bloomed,
like a high rise with secret ambitions,
creating an illusion of a sudden fire accident.
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
avian music,
march past of herons follows,
sunset formalized!
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 12:17 PM UTC
A regal white heron,
a bird of passage
that had followed
it's beloved dream
a long, long distance,
sits quiet unmoving,
atop a flowered lemon tree
on the bank of a tranquil pond
that wasn't known to it before.
Fish, enjoying freedom,all along
play meddling it's reflection
as if daring the heron to act
by trying to catch it's attention.
The crowned heron,
more placid than the pond
on the wings of an elating thought
resumes journey chasing it's dream.
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 12:27 PM UTC
Just beneath the road insensate,
in the little creek that crawls through town,
the rains brought him.
Iron-blue, patient, slender, high sits his head –
a lance, now raised – now half-tilt as he sights his prey – raised again
as a drifting leaf disrupts his aim.
Upstream he prowls, that his prey sees
him not.
He stalks with long, slow strides, his legs thin and
graceful not to disturb the quiet current of the water and
give himself away to senseless quarry. Few call him spindly,
I imagine. Not I.
By the shore, fish-bones, whole
but for the flesh,
sink into the mud.
A thoughtless dart, a flash, a writhing
beast falls still on his speartip.
What am I, then, that
he flies when I draw close?
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
—The Serenity Prayer
I. Heron
I was born arrow-straight, built for flying,
Three skipping stones past Otter Creek, hollow
Bones blanketed by slate gray, blue stones slight
And callused by well-worn prayers and shallow
Swells of minnows — subterranean aches —
And water cold on yellow scales, hardened
By the calamity of sunsets, lakes —
The drowning weight of too many pardons.
Dip low, tend this broken shoreline sweetly,
Spread shadowed wings and break honeyed silence.
Forgiveness take flight at dusk, discreetly
Written in psalms. Tepid soul find balance
Between the calm, a resting river space
This old trembling mind cannot displace.
II. Quetzal
After the storm, the chaos and quiet
Meet like dew poised on timid fingertips
And shallow grasses to quell the riot
Stirring inside. Fix fragments of this ship
Made of broken parts. My soul’s petrichor:
Inhale failure with a benediction
That fills tired lungs with bravery, before
Nature proposed expectations — fiction
Taut and mended by truth. The earth exhales
In breaths refreshed by rain, accompanied
By loudening trills and harmonious tales —
The tremor of circumstance, and the need
To continue existence like the weeds
That grow in sidewalks despite human greed.
III. The Pelican and the Gull
American Magicicadas choose
To surface seventeen years after birth
For the purpose of recreation. The Blue
Pelican cannot quietly unearth
The patterns of the tide without the gull,
But she does so with tireless trials
And the moon at her back — the lunar pull
Shaping stray shells for a little while.
Twenty-one years of tawny solitude
Shattered by innate desires, buried
Deep by stubborn aches, and kindly allude
To breathing for the first time. Weight carried
And lifted by rekindled hope, reaching
Sands like a button shell kissing the beach.
IV. Kingfisher
I pondered self-acceptance before diving
Into seas uncharted, with the patience
Of Tibetan monks softly harvesting
Grains of sand on an abandoned shore. Since
Emptiness is impermanence, we change
Like shifting seas suspended in nature,
Born from the crease of God’s hand — rearranged
Flaws bound by circumstance. Come close. Nurture
This silent heart into awakening.
Beyond these gray waters surges the sun,
Hopeful in the wake of a newfound spring,
Ochre and alizarin. We become —
Aware that no one saves us but ourselves,
With self-worth rising in tremendous swells.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC
— for Victoria
Seasons shuttle the tall stoic figure,
Graceful and solemn as wafted mist,
When seen, as if he was always there,
Overarching into meek, gloamy skies
Of mornings and dusk, mid day, lost,
Seems not right for wading out kills
That crane from above into the mud
And murk of the penny eyed waters
Only the ferryman will tender, for time
Slips, sleeping with the fishes, spears
Puddle and rim in the wakes, sparks
Of waters break like a sputtering fire,
His dart eyes are as yellow as golden
Sun dancing in funeral pyre. So green
Creatures, must they always be gotten,
Gone, have it coming from the sheering,
Mercies of the Great Blue Heron who is all
Seeing, scything, down to dazed judgement,
Incited, pecking to order at the squirming fold.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
by Wendell Berry
You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
The heron sits still
in the tranquil waters
waiting with patience for its prey
casting a shade with its wings
the fish squirms between its beak
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
White heron,
now I, in solitude eye
under the melancholy moon,
charmer of my heart,
even silver clouds
envy your easy grace
when you wing
towards horizon
undaunted even
by the wintry darkness
rushing forward.
Far above you are,
beyond my reach
are you a mirage?
in the rice field,
while tending
young saplings,
in muddy clothes
my eyes fell on
your immaculate
white dress
aha! I'll never forget
that smile
that moment you
made me yearn
for your magic
for always,
was it my fault?
I lost grip in
immediate reality
and soared up
I don't know
how it happens
look at me I am still
learning to navigate
the treacherous waves
of winds from east and west,
though the purple star
watching me from her perch
winks and sends
her ardent love messages
to me incessantly.
But you are flying
to lands too far,
never opened your heart,
I am like a candle
burning at both ends
eaten up by the love unrequited,
and not able to love the
distant star that loves me
expecting nothing in return
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
I got no more ***** on my arms, vaginal schemes and gospel psalms. Very private skinny tribes, lit up with oversized black lights. In the very end, everybody walks this way, they all move like idioms, they all wanna be lit up like stars. Some could be prevalent like cascading dreams, nauseous just like mesquite BBQ baby-back wings.
Fly away little bird, fly away. But don't try to leave
Or you won't get paid.
I know very well, just what kinda caption your capsaicin
Can be, lit up like honey blunts, golden stars on top of your christmas tree. Strawberry Swisher Sweets, Blueberry Dunhill flavors, poke your hand through the fence, make friendly on your neighbors. If you like Kimmel Live, Conan at Midnight too, recipes for the zombies, SS ****** Youth. Blow-up and be a party. Get off work and drink your check. Get down, get off- I'll show you. Just how Martin pays the rent.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:21 AM UTC