Cobbs Pond HeronRising silent from the woody fringes the great heron sails above the glacier-carved lake on slate blue wings He circles sun rippled waters Slow and stately long black legs stretch out behind him like the thin swift strokes of a calligrapher’s brush Implacable as Orion the bird surveys the waters his black plumed crest stirs in thermal air Last night’s bull frog chorus crouches below mute sinking into water lily shadows iridescent green blurred by clouds of silt The silent hunter glides into cool shallows beneath an overhanging willow The brilliant August afternoon stills Patient, golden eyed on one stalk leg he waits for the blink of an eye then strikes with pterodactyl beak the basso voiced frog Gray’s Ferry AveRust-haired girl clutches steaming Hess Express coffee in green striped mittens handknit no fingers Walks the double yellow line at Gray’s Ferry Ave. Commuters stream by The red light camera flashes Still shots of the rush etch her against the billowing gray November sky for thunderstorm seconds a PBS documentary in the making Her English bulldogs recline on blankets tethered to the traffic light chewing on bones bought at Pet Smart with yesterday’s gleanings She pours kibble into their bowl Strokes the brown one’s head then steps back into traffic She balances inches from a metallic blue Prius and a battered red pickup Thin-boned in shredded jeans clasping her damp corrugated cardboard sign to her breast she looks dead ahead Today the guy from Jersey in the pickup slows sticks an arm out Two crumpled dollars disappear into her unlaced work boot Her hazel eyes glimmer for a nanosecond then head down, straight ahead she paces on The pickup surges forward into a burst of hot, blinding red The robot camera nails him He curses At the Hess Express across the Ave the glass coffee pot scortches She starts her loop again Sea Games |
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