when I was callow and malleable 

the heron’s connotation was an antonym 

to her soft self-sufficient significance today 

the blue heron represented a naive sense of adoration and companionship, on a doc, on the lake  of the Ozark

the heron was a symbol of togetherness, two lives woven together out of need for someone to  carry my weight, and a need to carry somebody else’s weight 

there was one heron and two of us 

I was 17

on the precipice of a new epoch

my sweet heron flew elsewhere 

leaving me to grapple with isolation for the first time in 3 1/2 years 

I writhed in frustration, and fiddled with my binoculars for months 

twisting and turning the knobs and smudging the lenses in efforts to find clarity through the glass  I've always been a bird watcher 

but by my lonesome, for the first time in what felt like eons

I lost my ability to see

a thick bandana was tied around my head 

and my other senses failed to compensate and rise to the occasion 

I put out my long spindly finger, to let it act as a perch

I pursed my lips and tried to whistle, to make fledgling calls 

but all that came out were lonely croaks 

most likely the effect of puffing darts 

but in the same fashion of turning tides 

and changing seasons 

a new year rang in 

and my mother handed me a thick stack of medicine cards 

I closed my eyes, willfully and surrendered control and let my hands survey

the deck an energy greater than I drew me to a card in the middle of the deck

to my surprise I flipped my card and was graced with the familiar feathers of a blue heron  she had returned to me 

to revisit 

in efforts to find solace in my solitude 

the heron understood that in my time blind, I had cleared the space to be my own muse

I carry her feather behind my newly pierced right ear

I suddenly have new afflatus for my own being  I am

20 

and I'm starting to like myself in all that I am.