Night Heron

'I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.' Hamlet.

 
The night heron thought

she could hear the voices of things - 

the violet of the riverwords, 

the flint utterance of the moon,

and its rippled waterghost.

In stealth, creepfoot to creepfoot,

to tremble her weapon in the shallows - 

the stones name it, and she waits

in bluff, fish baited with offerings - 

bread, milkwhite, swells upon the surface,

until death speaks in edicts

as dark and thick as treacle. 
 

Handsaw of morning dreams,

singer of imaginary songs;

unscreeched in another world,

propped on peninsular branches,

a swindler, troubled and untroubled,

she loves and sleeps like a poet. 
 

Image is of a black-crowned heron from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Crowned_Night_Heron_(4578214020).jpg