First seen across the river
A pearly streak between the reeds.
Head hunkered down, body bunched.
A sinuous cipher in a strange place.
Overwintering, maybe for the first time.
Then, from a train.
A gleaming snowy-feathered capsule
Lurching forward, stilting step by step,
Acid yellow spike of bill against the green
Delving in the slime and weeds,
Delicately-boned and feathered,
Curving neck and breast and legs,
A plumed pod
With bill that juts and probes
Into the cold and grub-filled Barrow’s water.
Now, suddenly met close, upriver,
You turn and scan me with
A look of gentle shock
The river running in your small bird ears,
Head tilted, perched on the high bank edge.
Great white egret from the rain forest
Look at me, through your round eye
Before the startling of your huge white wings
Six-foot-spanned with trailing tips
Conveys you, floating on a river thermal,
Off down away.
Enheduanna 28/11/2012
Photograph: Dick Coombes
It's a Poetical World 