Heron

Today's the day ………………….. for a poem

I came upon one of Will's books today that I had never really looked at before - and it fell open at a poem about a heron.

We saw so many herons on our recent trip to Mull and they and their habits became very familiar to us.  I've always been fascinated that such a large, exotic-looking bird can be native to these shores and around in such numbers.  I thought the poem (by Robert Macfarlane) was a wonderful description of everything about them  ……………... 

Here hunts heron.  Here haunts heron.
Huge-hinged heron.  Grey-winged weapon.

Eked from iron and wreaked from blue and
beaked with steel: heron, statue, seeks eel.

Rock still at weir sill.  Stone still at weir sill. 
Dead still at weir sill.  Still still at weir sill.
Until, eelless at weir sill, heron magically . . .unstatues.

Out of the water creaks long-legs heron,
old-priest heron, from hereon in all sticks
and planks and rubber-bands, all clanks and clicks and rusty squeaks.

Now heron hauls himself into flight – early
aviator, heavy freighter – and with steady  wingbeats
boosts his way through evening light to roost.