Black Marsh Eclogue

Although it is midsummer, the great blue heron
holds darkest winter in its hunched shoulders,
those blue-burning-grey clouds
rising over him like a storm from the Pacific.

He stands in the black marsh,
more monument than bird, a wizened prophet
returned from a vanished mythology
He watches the hearts of things

and does not move or speak. But when
at last he flies, his great wings
cover the darkening sky, and slowly,
as though praying, he lifts, almost motionless,

as he pushes the world away.
- Sam Hamill, from the book Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1985.