On A Prairie Slough Just Outside The City
One Early Morning Mid-July
Inspired by Patrick Lane’s poem
“Under The Sun In The Dry, Desert Hills Where The Rain Never Falls In August”
Knee deep in liquid sky, a heron bides time in tall sedge shadows.
Canola, fluorescent yellow, a horseshoe frame for this mirrored water.
Among the swirl of, sandpiper, starling, sparrow, flash of blackbird; nothing as still.
The heron lifts one foot out of the water, steps forward. Nothing as silent.
I blink and she disappears into her silhouette. Nothing as ancient.
The heron reminds me of my grandmother.
I have the same skinny legs, same beak and round body.
She was my Nanna. I was her first.
I knew her best when she was my age. Sixty-nine.
I move and my shadow reaches out to touch hers .
The heron whips out her feathered cape, spreads it wide and rises.
She has come, we have been, and now, she carries on.
Eternally.
~ Diane Buchanan
Diane Buchanan is a poet and an essayist from Edmonton, Alberta. She is the author of two published books of poetry: Ask Her Anything and Between the Silences. She just recently moved into the city after having lived on a farm for thirty-six years.
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