Loon
The sun is slipping away toward the far side
of the lake,
the slow, silent coming of night is charged with a power
unseen;
but I’ve captured her now, in binocular eyes, the Arctic Loon mirrored
in a lacquered shaft of light.
She watches and waits, unmoving beneath a sheath
of sky;
this bird of crystal, this aloof, ethereal goddess of the lakes
awakens the spirit within me.
The long, long shadows begin to move up
from the deep
and all around are the wide, wide waters and the vibrant tang
of the Alaskan air.
(I see a muskrat heading in for the night, into the gentle ripples
lapping the bank.)
A star slides out of the heavens, clear-cut and pure as a single
diamond;
and as the light pales, withdrawing from the day
I hear her:
she opens her throat…I am held by the music
haunting the still of the dusk.
Her mate responds, gliding in as if by magic: a jewelled spirit
moving over the waters.
This night I shall not sleep. The mystical wilderness, the eternal song
of an angel – enters me.
The clarity of her notes is the channel for my vision;
and touching a star I know of something primitive, something that speaks
to the core.
This night in Loon country
I am released.
Page(s) 8
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