I prayed her through cactus mesquite and cattlebones
to the water's edge where the tall bird fished the stones.
The listening heron expanded with despair
unloosed unwilling wings, heaved from water into air.
o
he hated to fly he flapped with a splayed pain-
ful motion. Deliberate as a weathervane
he plodded through the air that touched the fishful water.
I followed him silently giving no quarter
all
that afternoon. He never flew far from me
we kept meeting past each cape and estuary
but he always heaved doggedly out of touch. I
only wanted to stare myself into him to try
and thou him till we recognized and became each
other. We were both fishing. But I could not reach
his eye. He fled in puzzled ponderous pain
and I at last rode home, conspicuous as Cain,
yet ashamed of a resigned demeaning pity
that denied us both. I returned to the
city
and visited the zoo, fished on a concrete shore,
took children to aquariums, and rode no more.
I found that the encyclopedia says "A
gregarious bird ..." No one spoke that desert day,
not one word. That fisher who heaved to dodge my eye
has damned himself an It and I shall never fly.
