LOVE AMONG THE HERONS

Great Blue Herons

are a very familiar shore bird

where I live.

They perch on fishing piers

and fish in the marshes.

They wade along shorelines

and nest in tall pine trees.

They fly overhead

with a startling, raucous cry.

They are as beautiful and strange

as they are familiar.

In recent weeks

I have found myself beguiled

by a particularly dashing bird.

Coy and seductive,

ready to pose for as long as I aim my camera…

Of course I am entranced.

In the morning –

turning just so in the bright-lit water –

he casts a shadow

on his handsome feathered back.

In the evening

he leads me among the pier posts,

shows me his mirrored image.

He fills my mind

and causes my heart to linger

in heron-land.

No wonder I danced with him

on the surface of my most recent pot.

No wonder I shamelessly lounged

in the marshes he frequents…

kicking my legs in the air

and  basking in his presence.

No wonder I celebrate my love

for the constant bird

by bringing my heart to my art.

Acceptible Gestures

Two of my brush & ink drawings will go to New York for the fall exhibit: one of birds – called Joyful Reunion. The other is yet to be chosen. I would like it to be one of the frolicing nude dancers; I can still dance in all my glory across the clean white surface of the paper. I can shake off age and modesty and flaunt my mental image of myself. Small nippled breasts on a body full and powerful and free – head thrown back in the moment  of release. Probably another nature study will be chosen, easier on the eye of the beholder. You would think that in New York… Yet inclusion will be decided by one person whose main interest is my artist father’s artistic vision of the natural world. My drawings of birds, cats, trees, rabbits and flowers are closer to the supposed source; more comparable, I suppose. The human depths and indiscretions of their creator are better left to the imagination. I suppose that even my wire creations are too evocative of earthly struggle: twistings and turnings and tangles make up the finished form. The dancers, even with the wings of angels, have breasts and abandoned postures. The doing of them requires some obvious effort, before the doer finds release through her creation.

Ah well… I wax a little plaintive here. Some slight cynicism comes to light. I shall think of the Isadoraish dancer on my piano – moving continuously, bouncing sunlight off her silvery curves. I had bravely volunteered her brightly balanced flow of movement, thinking she would convey more honestly the force of Leiflife: past, present, future. Who I am: the coiled and tender strands that work together to produce the generous and expansive whole. She went un-noticed among the images I sent.

Yet it is good that she stay with me for a while. Her delicate and slow-motion twirl – within the circle and arc of wire that  support her dance – is a gift that catches my eye throughout each day. Affected by the changing light – the shift of air, she teaches me to trust the dance I dance.