A little egret – elegant, self-absorbed

in its white solitude, its pale yellow beak

poised – is stalking crustaceans along

the low water margins of these mundane straits,

with their pleasure cruises and mussel dredging.

It is a native now not a renegade

from the storied Nile, the intemperate south.

Beyond the waters, high mountain ranges

fill the horizon. Two valleys split them –

one wooded, with a waterfall, wild ponies;

the other hanging, deep, steep sided.

In the foothills are sheep runs and stone walls –

above, an ancient caldera, and peaks

we cannot see from here. These featureless

hectares of wilderness – lavender, lilac,

mauve, as the light changes – somebody owns.

Nobody owns the little egret.

Here it has no natural predators –

no lurking crocodiles or aggressive

hippopotami – only perhaps

the polluted tides, the dieseled waves

it carefully navigates. We go

where we can go. We are what we are.

How free a spirit the little egret seems –

from guilt and hope and love!