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[70] NIGHT HERON, ASCENDING Through the window by my desk, I see a poem light in the branches of a tree. It roosts awhile, then leaves—Night heron, ascending. My friend thinks it an omen for something good and rare. I regard the question mark of its neck and back, its feathered cap streaked with pale saffron, ascending. Last season’s big storm flung a nest with young herons to the ground. Perhaps this is one of them, out of the rhododendrons ascending. In The Conference of The Birds, what fate befalls it as the flock undertakes the journey? A blur past oak, ash, and willow; past reddened crags, ascending. From that height, boats are specks on the water, and we, even smaller. Which dark craft at the river’s mouth is Charon’s, swiftly descending? In this summer light, some things look struck by gold: mythic, emblematic. Portentous spirit, wings outlined with neon—tell me of ascending. ...

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