Another summer month by the sea – the time I look forward to all year – comes to a close.  It has become the time when poems flow from land, ocean, river and breeze; from bird, flower, field and trees. And so I close my time here with yet another great blue heron sketch – not only has this majestic bird captured my imagination and my time; this summer, he also got captured by camera, mine.

Regal, he perches some forty feet up
steely blue outline sharp as a gargoyle

atop the lush green lollipop of tree
his vantage point of field and pond
territory watched with guarded eye;

he turns now this way, then that, scans
for intruders to his singular séance
with spirits. Surely

he listens to what they say
as still and profiled beak to tail
his body speaks vigilant care

to his task; alert and aware,
he takes his silent leave
from leafy post as we move in

our hundred feet too close for him
though still too distant for me!

swb