The Heron
Poetry

A solitary white bird stands
in the center of a rock.
He has a long beak,
His feathers are soft
He waits, expectant,
While the sun streams over him.
He curves his long wings above his head,
Their shadow reflects as ink curls in the water.
With his eyes he can pierce deep below him,
From here he can see all the other animals pass by,
A family of gray ducks,
A seagull dipping down from the sky.
The heron steps to the edge of the rock,
He stands upright, very still, almost invisible.
He stretches, unseen by the other animals,
his sharp claws pierce the river below.
A flicker of light ripples out,
Then another,
The fish take the shape of lightning in the water.
Moving fast, they attempt to evade his sight.
But his eyes are too quick for them, as he shifts his head from side to side.
The fishes skim the surface,
He measures their exact position in the water,
Then he strikes
Dorothy Johnson-Laird is a poet and social worker who lives in New York City. She received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Dorothy also has a passion for African music. She has published music journalism with www.afropop.org and www.worldmusiccentral.org Recent poems published by BeZine, Pomona Valley Review, and Fresh Words Magazine, among others. More of Dorothy's poetry can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083698660157