The heron stops me each time I see them.
My bike slows and my body mimics theirs –
still, hunched, watching,
looking for nourishment
that might exist
beyond my own senses
on this thin ribbon of grass,
separating four lanes of cars from dammed water.
We are both unsure of who or what might sustain us between these two rivers,
each man-made in their own way.
Between the rushing forward of cars and the slow meander of the water’s eddies,
I watch and time stretches out alongside their thin neck.
Remnants from a prehistoric past carve a line in the industrial present,
tilting forward toward the future
I cannot see
but might imagine.
A thin railing separates the cold metal of cars from our warm flesh,
and I think of the other rusty binaries in my life
that I crave but cannot count on to save me.
Good and bad,
Past and present,
Saved and doomed.
The heron is neither,
eroding simple categories
and ideas of who belongs where.
They are persistent focus amidst noise,
steadiness despite upheaval,
soft feathers pulsing alongside hard metal,
When they finally strike for food,
I see a body built of the past finding life in the present,
rippling out to a future
in which I am not sure who will remain
or how we will tell the stories that might bring us there.
Will there be more false lines of protection,
told with the harsh certainty of the highway’s inevitability
and the contrast of black asphalt against white paint?
Or will we find a new narrative
that is soft and trembling,
a plume of blue grey
swirling in the wind?
—
Caroline Bean is a climate activist and emerging poet. She is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD on the ethics of climate adaptation. She lives with her wife and two dogs in Boston. Her favorite bird is the American Dipper.
