Page 26 - WTPVolI Vol.#4

White Herons
The herons came in for the night
the canes of their legs reaching ahead into the trees their wings
ladling air for the landing
They quarreled in the voices of frogs shuffled for position on the limbs one discharging another into
the blue field of the evening
Wintering here they await the call
to the lunatic dance of their coupling at the vanishing point
where they must believe
there are still other waters
in which to construct
from imagined air the spandrel to a next generation
Beside me then you spoke of Siena the great horse on the stage
the young girls singing in the tunnels in a place I have never seen
The heart winters too in its season There are rivers and moons
roosts for the night and the pull
of near-remembered distance
We watched until transforming dark settled all argument in its indifferent cloak and the birds became
pale fruit above the water
Originally published in Southern Indiana Review. 19
KiRK Wilson