I love the Great Blue Heron

nesting on my pond.

I love his stress

when the Red-Winged Black Birds

peck at his head with retribution

for his thievery of eggs.

I love how he stands up and

takes it all,

the swirling wings of tiny payback

and I love, oh I love…

how the day exists beneath his wings

and even more

how they unfold: feather to muscle to bone

to flight and that somehow

in all of it I do not matter.

By Ann Iverson in “Broad Wings, Long Legs”