Jane Routh
The Night Heron
Here is the night heron
Come again on his journey
On slow wingbeats
Away from the river
From the south to the north,
Lowering and closening
Until his grey black purple
Thunder-coloured wings
Engulf the sky
If I swam slowly,
I could just reach
The island across the bay.
That time, there was
A bundle of tattered grey rags
At the end of the beach:
It was the night heron,
Smaller in death than in augury,
A skeletal structure
Barely covered
By thin feathering.
When I swam back
The clinging electrocuting pain
Of a jellyfish sting
Wrapped round my foot.
Ammonia quieted it,
Yet every time I step underwater,
I feel that sting -
I cannot not kick it off:
It is the night heron
Slowly beating his way across
The evening-dim bay.
Come again on his journey
On slow wingbeats
Away from the river
From the south to the north,
Lowering and closening
Until his grey black purple
Thunder-coloured wings
Engulf the sky
If I swam slowly,
I could just reach
The island across the bay.
That time, there was
A bundle of tattered grey rags
At the end of the beach:
It was the night heron,
Smaller in death than in augury,
A skeletal structure
Barely covered
By thin feathering.
When I swam back
The clinging electrocuting pain
Of a jellyfish sting
Wrapped round my foot.
Ammonia quieted it,
Yet every time I step underwater,
I feel that sting -
I cannot not kick it off:
It is the night heron
Slowly beating his way across
The evening-dim bay.
Page(s) 37
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