Sunday, March 3, 2013

Trinity River Heron


This that Fort Worth has for a river
flows with the detritus of last night’s
heavy rain still.

I take the fork to a path of crushed shale,
ignoring the new downpour,
and the flash of lightning.

Too late for shelter or safety,
more the momentum of long ignorance,
of course, than any bit of bravery.

Well, hell, let the young stand under bridges
and wait out the storm!

At the low-level dam of the Trinity, across the freeway
from the Fort Worth skyline waits the great blue heron
standing aslant in the shallows, head tilted comically toward the current.

Imagine in that fixed gaze the focus of its cares in the water:
what in its mind’s eye is reflected of the creature on the trail,
the slow upright figure like so many all day running upstream?

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