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.