Egret

1

At night, barechested
on the porch in the warm air,
I heard the frogs whistle
as they spawned in marsh
reeds on the horizon, beyond
the field where the red
dog played ball. The ewe
in the pen was ready
to drop lambs. Carpenter
flies buzzed
behind wood panels
of the door jambs.

It rained at night as she
fussed asleep in the Spring
air that blew through the window
after we made love. On the drive
home, I saw the snowy egret
statuesque along the highway,
white and luminous in the marsh,
like the light on her face
before I fell asleep.

2

The egret spears fish
and frogs in the pond, poised
like an arrow notched
on a string to snag prey.
It stalks the pool's rim,
intent and careful
not to stir the water
as fish break its surface
nabbing flies and larvae.

I watch from the company
door way smoking cigars
on break, after staring
at a computer screen
for hours. And I think
of an ancient Egyptian
viewing an ibis at
a river edge
and wonder
how much
of this beauty
we'd understand
were he to talk
in my way
and I in his.

I imagine that oneness
with the bird that brought
the consonant of its glyph
to his lips as the egret wades
along the shore and flies
into the afternoon,
sleek neck bent into
a question mark, long
wings angular against wind.
Peace is being
at one with the world
that bring things into being.

Would I find happiness
at the joint of the
world's pivot as it
wobbles pole to pole
between survival and loss,
fullness and vacuum,
calmly penetrating
the core of change
from a stasis
that is neither change
nor duration? I seek
the phantom of another
time and place
because I want
this beauty to emerge whole
from the vortex
of the ages and stalk
small ponds of oblivion
where egret and ibis
move mutely along
imagination's edge
and do not disturb
self-awareness
moiling beneath
the surface
seeking sustenance.

3

I point out five egrets in the lake
to the young man who drives me
home from the garage. He looks
and says "Uh-huh," used to the sight.
He's seen them all his life,
or maybe he has never seen them.

How long to forget
the world, dead
to its wonder,
thrilling only
to cares and the drive
of Technopolis?

How long will I take not
to see you, egret?
The beauty of time
is in memory
and the fullness
that the future bears
from absence.

(c) copyright Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.