this is how I would…

~ Live & Learn

The startled blue heron erupts out of its long-legged
inwardness and flies low to the pond over its
shadow. My eye flickers between its great sweep

of wing and its blurred mirror motion almost white
in the pond’s sky-shine. At the end of each wingbeat,
the long body dips toward its rising shadow. Now

the heron settles back down onto itself as far away
from me as the pond allows and I finish my walk half gangly,
half graceful thinking if I were a bird, this is how I’d fly.

~ Nils Peterson, “Blue Heron” from All the Marvelous Stuff (2019)

Notes: Poem via 3quarks Daily. Blue Heron photo: Pennington

20 thoughts on “this is how I would…”

  2. Lovely. I am enchanted by the Great Blue Heron that frequents our pond. I love watching him fish, or simply stand serenely at the edge of *his* body of water. The Sandhill Cranes are delightful, too. So much to marvel at in our world, and I am so grateful to be transported to another ‘head space’ these days….

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      1. I find them a source of endless fascination. Just stood out in the yard and watched them the other day. I think it’s mating season as the boys seem to be doing a lot of jumping and shaking…quite dramatic. The ladies seem, well, underwhelmed….😂

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  4. The Blue Heron in his solitary morning grace, grants us briefly with a graceful, beautiful interlude…in our unintended interruption the Blue Heron’s peaceful life takes flight…// Nils Peterson’s words and the photo you share evoked in me the thoughts above of the many times we’ve happened across a Blue Heron in the quiet shallows of the river…

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  5. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    ‘The startled blue heron erupts out of its long-legged
    inwardness and flies low to the pond over its
    shadow. My eye flickers between its great sweep’ … and more!!
    Nils Peterson, “Blue Heron” from All the Marvelous Stuff (2019).

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  10. I read this on my smartphone but meant to write to you when at my laptop. Now I am and don’t know any longer WHAT I meant to add to your day…. sorry – but it’s a most beautiful poem and photo. When I lived in the UK we often took boat trips (well not often but occasionally, we called them short holidays) on the River Dart and that was magic because we saw all kinds of birds nesting, flying, fleeing, searching for food on these boats.

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