Ode to the Great Blue Heron
& the Rivers of Ohio
How do we listen better to the creatures around us –such as in the Great Blue Herons, who often wade unseen beside our buzzing highways and still construct their rookeries above our equally-hidden rivers?
Snow upon the water
Heron gliding through
Wings that span the silver
Strands within the blue
Cuyahoga
Muskingum
Scioto
Vermillion
Maumee
Miami
Darby
Olentangy
Somehow you survive us
Wing & beak & claw
Elemental throbbing
Thrusts your heart aloft
No arms can contain you
Solitary mind
Still along the shoreline
Waiting for your time
Mohican and Hocking
Paint and Tuscarawas
Mad, Raccoon, and River Styx
Alum, Buck, and Clear Fork
Grand, Chagrin and Black Fork
Big Walnut, Broken Sword Creek
There’s a stream runs through my town
Much of it flows underground
No one can believe it’s there
No one seems to even care
What else do we never see
Living so invisibly
Knots within the giving tree
Like some ancient rookery
Huron
Kokosing
Sandusky
Mahoning
Coming & going
Lost in our knowing
Grieving and mooring
Waking our morning
Coming & going
Lost in our knowing
What else do we never see
Living so invisibly
Knots within the giving tree
Like some ancient rookery
Snow upon the water
Heron gliding through
Wings that span the silver
Strands within the blue