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!
By David Selzer