Austin Segrest September 28, 2018

Great Blue Heron

A bit washed out, bedraggled
with his rattail and wet neck spikes
lumbering skyward into a crosswind

tilting something awful,
all-elbows, defiant
as a plywood-sided trailer listing between lanes,

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he sounds his indignant, prehistoric squawk
over the carp roiling in runoff,

their mouths’ rubber rings
singing mute hosannas.

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This article also appeared in print, under the headline “Great Blue Heron,” in the October 15, 2018, issue.

Austin Segrest

Austin Segrest teaches poetry at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. His poems have recently appeared in Image, Ecotone, Shenandoah, 32 Poems and elsewhere.

 

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