Today's poem is by Joshua McKinney

Proselytus
       

                    The heron has no need of heaven,
not when ankling above its own blurred image bent
          back by light upon the river's skin,
          nor when the prayer of its patient waiting
                    hones hunger to an angel and
the river's liquid shiver ceases, nor when,
          without anger, its chaste brain drives at once, beyond
                    the abducting eye, its yellow bill-spear
          down, through its mirrored surface self into
                              that other world of blood and flesh.

                    Fish and frogs attend it, and ducklings
dabble within the shadow of its slaty cloak,
          open to enfold their new-hatched and
          immaculate death. The heron troubles the water
                    where I have come at dawn, entering late
to answer, with the others, its voiceless
          summons stalking the fog. I walk the river's
                    willowed, reedy rim, where rime has left
the smooth rocks slick. There, as I slip
                              and pick my blunted way with care, I hear

                    the heron lift its vast-winged weight aloft
and know that I have strayed too near, and see
          shrouded in a downed cloud's breath,
          its apparition rise, take flight, unhurried
                    and sure, beyond the farther shore where
I cannot follow. There, it will descend, tall-
          shouldered, crowned, to minster
                    to the mice and voles that mine the mead.
And I am left with my need, unable to read
                              the runed sand where a god stood.

Copyright © 2025 Joshua McKinney All rights reserved
from Sad Animal
Gunpowder Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission