GREAT BLUE HERON AT BURNETT BRIDGE

 

You took me in the sun

 

to your home-
town, to the tidal

 

marsh, to the bridge

where you jump

 

 

 


into me.

 

 

___

 

 

 

a great blue

 

heron stills
its gait

 

to wait
in the shallows

 

poised

 

watching for

 

shadows
to wend
the cold
currents

 

under

 

the surface

___

Once there was a door

 

 

 

that jammed
at the thought of itself.

 

You open the door
to reveal a gate you open

 

 

 

to another door—

 

The morning sun

 

slants into me,
a sharp fire in crisp air.

By night,
I was ashamed to cry

 

into your chest.

___

At sea, conifers climb roughhewn
rock of islands. Upstream, plovers
pipe the ploughheads of beaks
into mud for invertebrates. Can you
see trees walk? Can you see beneath
the mud, into the fishhold word
plover? Can you see a door’s
fleshhood swell against its jam?

___

the gulf
between
stasis and
patience

 

gapes

 

awaiting
water’s
return

 

or the calendar
days I count
until
it is humid
between us

 

until you
jump into
the water

 

until I
again can
warm

 

my ear on

 

your neck

___

 

The in-tide will return,

 

you will splash, the drops
will kiss the earth

 

with diamonds.

At home I open all the doors
to let in sea-liquor, wind,

 

songs of the birds whose

 

 

names I have yet to learn.

 

___

 

 

& the firs cling

 

to their island rocks.

& the herons release
their jeweled shames.
& the world invites us

 

 

 

 

 

to stillness.