HERON & HARP
I drag my harp across the gapped
terrain of pier—a hundred feet with nothing
underfoot but slats of air and swirling tide—
and place the harp in front of me to play
“The Water Is Wide,” a sort of joke here,
where the channel is so narrow.
A few notes into the song: a squawk.
Flying low, a heron glides across
the river’s edge to land beside me.
Head tucked so he can stare me down
from his perch on a piling—
summoned by the strange cascade of frequencies—
or did he mistake the arching frame for another
large and gawky bird?
I keep the tune going, a slow air
we would call it, as the oscillations rise,
and then retreat, leaving
song and bird, the harp and me suspended
in a pulse, a wave, a measure
where the water is wide enough
to hold us all.
—from At the Narrows © Word Poetry, 2015
Meredith Davies Hadaway is the author of three poetry collections, including At the Narrows, winner of the 2015 Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing.
Jamie Kirkpatrick says
Brava!
Linda Hall says
Lovely, Meredith, you paint a beautiful picture. Linda [email protected]
Barbara in den Bosch says
Thanks, Meredith, for the beautiful poem.
Carla Massoni says
Thank you Meredith.