Great-Billed Heron

Dawn stretches
from a single color:
charcoal from balsam,
blue to the grace that draws
nineteen cervical vertebrae
in a liquid line.

Edges of wings that once
held back a longer sky
smooth crests of hills
and now in landing tuck
and fold the wind away.

He hides in the open.
Obvious. Evolved.
Waits like dignity,
disappears only to frogs,
fish. They see one leg
still and think rush
or reed:
nothing fearful.

Water whorls spin
slowly inside and out
behind the slight
obstruction of his leg.
Slack water, the canvas
of unsteady waver. Meander.
Swell. The slight wave curls,
small tongue. Fixed breath

then stab
stiletto and no splash.

 
by Bill Yake