White Heron Rises Over Blackwater

I wonder
   what it is
     that I will accomplish
       today

if anything
   can be called
     that marvelous word.
       It won’t be

my kind of work,
   which is only putting
     words on a page,
       the pencil

haltingly calling up
   the light of the world,
     yet nothing appearing on paper
       half as bright

as the mockingbird’s
   verbal hilarity
     in the still unleafed shrub
       in the churchyard—

or the white heron
   rising
     over the swamp
       and the darkness,

his yellow eyes
   and broad wings wearing
     the light of the world
     in the light of the world—

ah yes, I see him.
   He is exactly
     the poem
       I wanted to write.