Wednesday 11 January 2017

Study of a Great Blue Heron

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I can't get enough of Ted Kooser's poetry.  It is so good it makes me swoon in loving appreciation of his heartfelt transformative vision. For he is so in love with the world you see, it shines through every line. 


Etude - Ted Kooser

I have been watching a Great Blue Heron
fish in the cattails, easing ahead
with the stealth of a lover composing a letter,
the hungry words looping and blue
as they coil and uncoil, as they kiss and sting.

Let’s say that he holds down an everyday job
in an office. His blue suit blends in.
Long days swim beneath the glass top
of his desk, each one alike. On the lip
of each morning, a bubble trembles.

No one has seen him there, writing a letter
to a woman he loves. His pencil is poised
in the air like the beak of a bird.
He would spear the whole world if he could,
toss it and swallow it whole.

3 comments:

  1. Watching my favorite great blue heron catching breakfast this morning in changing light I’m reminded of how much like a first draft of a poem he is. Love this poem.

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  2. I typed this out from my volume of James Armstrong's poetry, because I couldn't find it online and I think you would love this:

    Heron
    James Armstrong

    Up to his backward knees
    in the silken wash,
    the color of ash, he is two
    characters at once:
    the original,
    upright, relentless
    god of spearmen,
    and the blue messenger.
    He wades in morning light, against the horizon
    where the perfect clouds
    are pushed by the wind. Gulls
    wheel in the long shadows of the dunes.
    Suddenly he unfolds
    his cloak, and with exaggerated slowness
    withdraws each leg
    from the wave, doubles his neck,
    suspends himself from the sun by wires,
    and leaves without speaking.

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