The Heron's Eye

Recently I felt muddled while painting -- distracted by restless bouts of altering this and that, to no avail -- there 

was nothing to do but quit the day.  So I drove off for a calming walk at our local wetland in Sugar Hollow Park. 

What fortune to spot a green heron then, patiently stalking minnows in the murky swamp. How I admired that bird's 

intense focus!  And standing there on the boardwalk, I felt the essence of Dan's "Master Heron."     

                                                                                                                                                        -- Suzanne                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

          

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                                     Master Heron

                       St. Marys fishing village,

                         coastal Georgia

 “Mud Scoggin” — in humble Georgia

     dialect that hides uncanny

 mastery each dusk you stalk

     the boat-dock within moments

 of the risen tide swelled ripe

     with squirming bream.  Perched

 on the edge of bobbing skiff, or

     tightroping the wires hooked

 to planks / until a silver murmur

     clouds your eyes & sets your

 rolling neck into a greenbrown

     hunch.  Your samurai beak,

  time after time, piercing

                                              the ocean’s heart!

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“Master Heron” first appeared in the Harvard Review, 

and later in Dimming Radiance: Poems & Prose 

Parables (Wind Publications, 2008). It will be included 

in Dan’s forthcoming volume Back to the Source: 
Selected Poems & Parables (San Francisco Bay 
Press, 2018).