on monday sam, my hero, sighted a great blue heron as it arrived at low tide. i watched him checking it out with the binocs, though we didn't really need them. it is very tall and depending on the light looks teal or blue gray. what little grass there is is still so short it stands out brightly, vividly.
today marty saw it near the smaller bridge, on our side of the river. i'm wondering if it's the same one from last year, who lived around here until the late fall. i'm not sure how to figure that out or if it really matters but i'm curious. i don't feel possessive about this heron, or any heron - they are so self-contained and self-assured you can tell they belong only to themselves. perhaps you could say the same about the mallards but somehow it's different; i do, presumptuously, affectionately, feel they are ours, whereas great blues are their own, i just know that.
i'm always happy to see the ducks and the geese when they appear but there is a thrill, a certain excitement, that comes with each visitation from a heron; it's never ordinary. i knew there were several poems of mary oliver's concerning herons and found the one i wanted quite easily though i hadn't read it in a long time. i'm so glad the heron has returned; has it?
Circles
In the morning the blue heron is busy
stepping, slowly, around the edge of the
pond. He is tall and shining. His wings, folded
against his body, fit so neatly they
make of him, when he lifts his shoulders and begins to rise
into the air, a great surprise. Also
he carries so lightly the terrible sword-beak. Then
he is gone over the trees.
I am so happy to be alive in this world
I would like to live forever, but I am
content not to. Seeing what I have seen
has filled me; believing what I believe
has filled me.
The first words of this page are
hardly thought of when the bird
circles back over the trees; it floats down
like an armful of blue flowers, a bundle of light
coming to refresh itself again in the black water, and I think:
maybe it is or it isn’t the same bird- maybe it’s
the first one’s child, or the child of its child.
What I mean is, our deliverance from Time
and the continuance, if we only steward them well,
of earthly things. So maybe it’s myself still standing here, or
someone else, like myself hot with the joy of this world, and
filled with praise.
-Mary Oliver
Life on the Salt Marsh is a journal of what i am learning and experiencing in this breathtakingly beautiful place, where the Dyer and Sheepscot, both tidal rivers, meet and merge.
Sweet Last Days of Summer
Author
- Rev. Mary
- Midcoast Maine
- Rev. Mary is a Unitarian Universalist minister who served congregations in San Francisco, Sonoma County, Houston, Marblehead and Winchester MA, and New Orleans, in a variety of ways. She is President and co-founder of Gulf Coast Volunteers for the Long Haul and has led 14 service trips to Louisiana and Mississippi since a few weeks post-Katrina. She has 3 children, Sam, 22, Julia, 26, and Jason, 41, and the best spouse in the universe, Marty. She was diagnosed with ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease in 2006. Rev. Mary can be reached at duckdreams at gmail.com. Due to her illness her ability to reply is unlikely but she would enjoy hearing from you if that's OK.
From Mary's Journal in December
after simple surgery turned into a nightmare: "the pain has been excruciating and for 3 days was unrelenting, even breathing was an agony. i tried to picture our mallard in maine who i studied one day when it was freezing cold, windy, pouring down rain and he was in his spot in the grass all tucked up and i tried to imagine how he could handle the elements. i decided he must go very deep inside and have duck dreams. so i tried to emulate him."