RSR ~ POETRY
HERON EASTER
Easter Sunday
and I am seeking the Resurrection,
down at the lake-line
thick with blackberry bramble,
the wind a holy prayer
through Spring cat-tail fronds.
I am troubled and hollow
and the sun through a thin gauze of cloud
does not warm me.
I want to lay here
and awaken in three days
to find my life somehow
transformed
by an act of grace.
Heron stalks the shallows
hunting it’s Eucharist of minnow
and duck-weed.
I quietly move toward him in slow half steps.
In one quarter hour I move ten feet.
I ease down and watch.
What act of grace
grants Heron both patience and flight,
yet leaves me
anxious and Earth-bound?
What sacrament must I make
to earn the redemption
Heron knows from birth?
I fall asleep
and dream of slow ripples
on cold lake,
and pollen on water lilies,
and the flash of sun on scales -
sparking and turning.
I awaken an hour later
to see the Heron
gazing intently towards me.
He stabs at the water and swallows greedily.
I am cold.
Thirsty.
As empty as the desultory wind
scuffing the bushes around me.
I do not feel touched by the hand of any God.
Heron knows when the
fish aren’t there,
you go to a new water.
Did Christ, the Fisher of men,
forsake the empty pond?
Will he return someday
drawn by the scent of our worthy blood?
Heron is not moved by the lust for new waters.
He is driven by the
majesty of hunger,
the grace of survival.
Will I return to this familiar place,
resurrected by my simple desire to exist?....
....to hunt
and be hunted....
redeemed by my own blood?.....
R.S. Russell