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.