POINTS OF VIEW
Emily Rand Breitner
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
The Great Blue Heron picks his stealth
way down the rim of the lake.
It’s April and we’re longing for peepers:
I’m hungry for their shrill song; the heron’s just hungry.
In the marshy waters peeeeping frogs confuse
stick-like reeds and reed-like legs until
the heron tenses, beak slashing the surface
and Gulp! He swallows.
An hour passes, fewer peepers
yet no dearth of singers.
The chorus swells, the heron’s sleek, his gullet fills.
Suddenly the heron breaks his cover and,
like some prehistoric creature discovering flight –
trailing those gangly legs half in
half out of water – he beats the air and rises.
Every April’s the morning of my life,
the same for peepers.
Every April the heron’s at the lake –
and waiting
_
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