In Our Place
       

Patience, the heron knows I want
to turn him into patience, and since
he is the great blue heron, he knows
I want to cast him as what turns blue
even unto death from great patience.
He stands in a deluge, bill tucked under
one wing, his racing stripe hidden,
next to the lake he hunts in. Now
nothing can be done in the dark rain.
He catches sight of me through a window
though I have lurked so mindful
not to disturb him, so mistrusting he is
of anything impatient men do, like trying
to turn him into a poem. He scowls
at my shadow behind the curtain
the way a mountain lion once did
on a fire road, showing me how little
right any of us have in being wherever
we are, warning against the foolish trust
that things will return to normal,
the hope that the rain will not outlast
our need to eat and shriek a little song
when things go the way we like
and blue means sky, not misery.

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Copyright © 2014 Anthony DiMatteo All rights reserved
from Beautiful Problems
Beautiful Problems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission