American Bittern

Embattled in wind-dust & resounding chitter, history begins with a valley

                                    Lit by birds,

Mimic thrush & warbler, cardinals in their chapel of trees,

An old lexicon of crests and field marks

Which come and go in rushes of dark,

The rising and falling of a species,

In fragments captured

Suddenly by gravity.

From a birch shadowed window-perch, I hope to note the tail patterns

                                     In swifts of air

Upvalley; here, instead, I marsh-spot the American bittern,

Hidden among cattails and reed-shadow,

Its deep weedy song pumping and slow,

The spearlike neck and bill upturned,

Unmoving, indifferently poised there

At the edgewater's churn.

To say this spectrum of flock-thrum & earthwork is, in appearance,

                                     Something I know

Truly is to dishonor the memory of experience;

I can only report, speaking in that spotty language

Of distance, in one moment's fleeting image:

A stocky wader detected in murk-search.

Some only know through echo

How far down is down to earth.