Through the window by my desk, I see a poem light in the branches
of a tree. It roosts awhile, then leaves— Night heron, ascending.
My friend thinks it an omen for something good and rare. I regard the question
mark of its neck and back, its feathered cap streaked with pale saffron, ascending.
Last season’s big storm flung a nest with young herons to the ground.
Perhaps this is one of them, out of the rhododendrons ascending.
In The Conference of The Birds, what fate befalls it as the flock undertakes
the journey? A blur past oak, ash, and willow; past reddened crags, ascending.
From that height, boats are specks on the water, and we, even smaller.
Which dark craft at the river’s mouth is Charon’s, swiftly descending?
In this summer light, some things look struck by gold: mythic, emblematic.
Portentous spirit, wings outlined with neon— tell me of ascending.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Ciphers
- Preces
- Rest Stop
- Presentiment
- Ghazal, Between the Lines
- Ghazal, Beaded with Rain
- Night Heron, Ascending
- Derecho Ghazal
- Mid-year Ghazal
- Punctuation
- Mortal Ghazal
- Landscape, with Chinese Lanterns
- After
- Charmed Life
- Undone
- Index
- What We’ll Remember
- Amarillo
- Ghost of a pulse in the throat
- Throttle Ghazal
- Visitations
- Of Nectar
- Preliminaries
- To/For
- Capriccio
- Getting There
- Four-Way Stop
- Vortex
- Flood Alphabet
- Tokens
- The hummingbird isn’t the only bird
- A hawk circles over the ridge
- Rather than the tightening fist,
- Reversed Alphabet of Rain
- Cocoon
- Manifest
- (poem temporarily hidden by author)
- Intertext
- Letter, to Order
- Telenovela
- Retrospective
- Breve
- Pumapatak*
- There’s a bird that comes
- Spore
- September 1972
- Fire Drill
The beautiful images in your poem are now ascending to the heron where it will cry out in wonder at this marvelous answer to its omen.
Thank you ,Luisa, for sharing it with us.
Thank you Alex xo
I wrote a poem replying to this, but it never made it here. I don’t know where it went on the blog.
I don’t know, either — it didn’t appear in the spam folder or the moderation queue. I presume you kept a copy somewhere. Why don’t you just try to leave the comment again?
Robbi, Dave — I found the poem :) Robbi, you left it in the comments to the Morning Porch entry. Nice poem too!
Yes it is. Here.