The Gray Heron
By Galway Kinnell
It held its head still
while its body and green
legs wobbled in wide arcs
from side to side. When
it stalked out of sight,
I went after it, but all
I could find where I was
expecting to see the bird
was a three-foot-long lizard
in ill-fitting skin
and with linear mouth
expressive of the even temper
of the mineral kingdom.
It stopped and tilted its head,
which was much like
a fieldstone with an eye
in it, which was watching me
to see if I would go
or change into something else.
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A lot of my Wednesday was a chore day, though I got to talk to my high school friends at lunchtime (2/3 of them, anyway; the other is in the Virgin Islands with her dad) and just before I got off that call, we had an estimator arrive to inspect the flood damage and figure out what is going to be necessary to repair the drywall. So at least stuff is getting done.
We took a walk in the late afternoon because the weather was once again gorgeous, had veggie chili for dinner, watched The Masked Singer which finally unmasked Duck Dynasty, and then watched some Ted Lasso including the Christmas episode (sure it's sappy but why does the internet care so much?). Some of the herons we saw at Huntley Meadows last weekend: