Heron In a Windy Blow

A Blue Heron unleashes itself from a surfing wind and flowing sky. Wings spread it rides, almost hovering, as it seeks a nestled place to land. There, the long reeds have been hollowed out by its mate, but she has gone to fish, gone elsewhere. The bird lands, for a moment its long legs are buoyed by the merest whisp of gravity. The heron settles, folding its wings like a cloak around him, now as the wind ruffles its feathers he seems only a scrawny effigy, of the bird in flight, a plumed twig planted in the disturbed shallows. The pond ripples with silver whispers, small fish dart, their heads arrowing deeper. The Great Blue strides slowly to the shoreline becomes a living statue, a patient presence amid the rushing blow. That is when I saw how the world is stirred around by a stillness, how an unmoving center can turn within a heron's eye.