for Erik Reece

I’ve heard the great blue heron
cannot see its own reflection
cast from the water’s surface—

a gift that it may never lose a fish
in the image of a perfect eye
or fail to see a frog amid
such slate feathers shed
from a rookery on high.

If only we could fade that way
into the mist of rivers,
into rhododendron shade;

if only we could be so beautiful
and not know a thing about it.

Previously published in Ruminate Magazine as an honorable mention in the 2011 Janet McCabe Poetry Prize, judged by Naomi Shihab Nye, and appeared again in A Conference of Birds (New Native Press, 2012)