In my next life
I want to come back
as a Great Blue Heron.
I will majestically
stand by a lake, capturing
fish, capturing the eye
of all who wander by,
pausing in awe and desire.
And I will have
the one thing I know
I now lack, that trait
that has escaped me
for far too many years,
patience, the ability
to stand and stare
until the moment
is right, then to act.
I am not in a hurry
for this reincarnation,
so perhaps I have more
patience than I realize.
Even long after he had left
his childhood behind, or such
of it as he had actually had,
he could still stare up into
the night sky, at ceiling of stars
with more than a little awe.
And even though he had left
childhood behind, no one
had yet answered the one
question his parents ducked
time and time again, one
so simple a child knew
its answer, but asked anyway,
for validation or irritation.
If God created the heavens
why did He or She arrange
the stars so that people
could see in their order
other people, lesser gods
and all manner of animals?
I saw the sun
rise this morning
over Mt. Hood, the
glow that announced
to the horizon its approach.
There should be
in the life of every man,
every woman, that moment
when seeing dawn
lift, peel back the shroud
from Mt. Hood causes the sudden
intake of just that much extra breath
that like the sky’s morning flame
we are consumed by the moment.
It is her time and she knows
she is ready for this moment, has been
for eons, knows it will come again
but none here will remember this day.
She stares at them, but they ignore her,
and she grows angry, her visage
reddens as she slowly retreats,
know the interloper will move along, hoping
that her return later will provoke
the sort of interest she deserves,
the sort she know she should command.
She teased them weeks ago, but this moment
must surpass that, and will, if only
the clouds play along with her.
She knows clouds are fickle, but
even mother nature usually concedes
if only begrudgingly, and tonight
should be one of those occasions.
She will not see them gather, but
her arrival will be heard in the
collective sigh and the memories she knows
they will carry into their eternity.
It was sunrise, he was on the banks
of the river, and he knew, in that moment
that he would remember the scene, if not
the name of the river, or where
on its banks he was, that was
of no consequence at all, only the beauty.
When asked about it, he would say
that it was an obscene beauty, although
he knew people would question how
anything obscene could be beautiful
and anything truly beautiful could be obscene.
He could not hope to explain this,
but it was simply obscenely beautiful,
if only for the few moments it took
the sun to further erupt from the river.
When he would describe it, and they
would engage in a nervous twitter
he would laugh, not a giggle, but
the deep, oblivious laugh of the child.
He imagines what it might be like
to come down out of the foothills
and roam the mesa, unseen unless
he wishes, a complete freedom.
And even if he chooses to be seen, he
can take whatever shape he wishes,
and they would see him only as he
chose, for only as long as he chose.
Even now, he knows, they see him
as they wish, see what they take
to be him, but which is an illusion,
for even the mirror presents
only illusions — you cannot see
others, cannot see your self,
can only grasp the illusory world
and imagine it finite and tangible.
The coyote knows better, and that
knowledge makes him a shapeshifter
with which man could
only marvel and fear.
The fly hovers before me
I stare at it trying to freeze
its diaphanous wings
to hold it, still, in my mind’s eye
locking it in a moment
that might last my eternity.
I sit calmly in the chair
staring out at the storm
building outside the window
as the fly stares at me
seeing a thousand faces
of awe and fear
an old writer and his words 