The Emperor Bird

I almost trashed an anhinga in the middle of a street leading out to the highway from our copycat barrier island: sibling of another it resides beside, curling around the end of the Florida coast as far north as North can go, where this part of our universe spells Home. "What's an anhinga?" my visiting northern friend asks, a query her southern friend takes to task-- no Emperor Bird in frosty Vermont. Anhinga: a fish-eating diving bird with an elongated neck and sharp bill that inhabits the warmer freshwater regions of North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia, lot of A's here for an A-rated equestrian, sometimes called "snake bird" for its awesome appendage between girth and head; "neck" not a word noble enough to describe his body part mostly assigned to lower orders that creep and crawl. Demonic gray, angelic demeanor, the anhinga spreads blessing while he sits at the edge of my neighbor's dock, wings wide out to a warm morning sun, Jesus worship, anhinga style. I did not trash an anhinga in the middle of the road, grateful it was bird, not lowly toad, easy to spot his important neck so there was no eminent wreck, when he crossed slow motion from one side to the other of miniscule lakes at our entrance. Kingly fisher of dugout waters, too large and handsome for any cover, as I halted my ride, he gave me one grave and quizzical look, then satisfied he would not be took, returned majestically to the pond he just quit Royal bird of noblesse oblige, no matter the offensive of manmade machines, for the good of us all, and our entire physical world, You, emperor entity, beautiful and live, you must needs survive. for Elise