When the heron lands and folds up its elegant wing,
It's as if a symbol has grounded and taken up its perch,
Silently, cloud grey on cloud grey, soft coloured,
Almost invisible in the muted light and falling rain.
A visitor startling and exotic near the noise of traffic,
An apparition from a place so close it lies forgotten,
Emaciated and ethereal, a presence so feather light
And temporary, it could alight at any moment,
With its slim, gangly neck skyward, its wingspan spreading,
Beating its way against the odds, up into the evening.
And gone. As if the space it occupied is now all heron.
As if its after-image fills a swelling space of magic,
Where the mind's eye imagines the hallucination of the bird,
Spreading out to fill the entire sky and horizon, grey on grey.
PS: Had Dogen's poem in the back of my mind. Here's Dogan:
The whole grass world cannot be seen
In the snowy field
A white heron is hiding himself
Using his own form
It's as if a symbol has grounded and taken up its perch,
Silently, cloud grey on cloud grey, soft coloured,
Almost invisible in the muted light and falling rain.
A visitor startling and exotic near the noise of traffic,
An apparition from a place so close it lies forgotten,
Emaciated and ethereal, a presence so feather light
And temporary, it could alight at any moment,
With its slim, gangly neck skyward, its wingspan spreading,
Beating its way against the odds, up into the evening.
And gone. As if the space it occupied is now all heron.
As if its after-image fills a swelling space of magic,
Where the mind's eye imagines the hallucination of the bird,
Spreading out to fill the entire sky and horizon, grey on grey.
PS: Had Dogen's poem in the back of my mind. Here's Dogan:
The whole grass world cannot be seen
In the snowy field
A white heron is hiding himself
Using his own form
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