The winter world is full of simple beauties. A thick blanket
of snow, a perfect day for curling up by the fire and reading. The nip of the
wind on your cheeks and the way they warm when you come back inside. A blue sky
after days and days of seemingly endless gray.
A heron and a crow standing side-by-side on a frozen pond.
One afternoon, I was out walking our German Shepherd,
Pfeffer, when I saw them. Perhaps they were just two birds standing on the ice.
But it looked like the heron was taking council, receiving a daily report from
the crow. Maybe a bird is just a bird, but a walk can also be an opportunity to
live, to discover.
And a poem is never just a poem…
The Crow and the Heron
The crow cawed to the wind,
his voice swallowed up among
whispers of change.
The creak of the ice beneath his
claws
settled in an answer of sweet
silence,
perfect stillness among the white
winter world
stained by a single black spot,
striking feathers.
The crow cawed to the heron as he
glided
down
down
down
onto the lake, to take his perch on
the ice
to hear the younger bird’s report.
The crow cawed about the days,
lengthening like a stretching shadow
drawn out by the playful dance of
the sun.
Winter will end, the world will wake
up the crawlers, the diggers, the
prancers.
It’s time to begin the song of
spring.
The crow cawed about the dog,
like a she-wolf in her crouch
new to stalking the neighborhood
felines and fowl
hackles raised and teeth bared
only to lick the gruff hands of her
master
who stoops to right a beetle,
overturned
on his blue-black wings.
The crow cawed a farewell as the
heron took off,
gliding
up
up
up
amid the trees, over the red sloped
roofs
of the jigsaw puzzle that is the
village,
stacked atop one another in one way
until the world is sifted again.
***
Related posts: In Season,
Shadows, and Weird Winter Weather
Let’s chat! When was the last time
you made a discovery by catching a glimpse of something simple? How does this
poem make you feel?
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