On the shores of Lake Adair,
an egret’s neck snakes though
wind bent bamboo patch.
It stretches wings into yogic pose,
eyes something sideways,
tilts head, spears beak down —
nothing — then wades on.
Small boles of Spanish moss
unfurl beards from gaunt cypress,
root nodes knuckling sandy grass,
saw palmettos clatter,
waves rippling orange sunset
over navy blue depths.
I sit zazen, trying to meditate.
Orlando rush-hour clogs I-4
to standstill. Boat-tail grackle
strops its beak on shingle roof
over kiosk that describes it.
A purple martin squawks down,
pulls weeds, breaks them,
then flies off to its nest.
Thrashing squeak in the sedges —
then silence, a little death
in the lake as sirens wail
all around and a couple jogs
the path, sandy haired mom, white
teeth, pushing twins in a stroller,
a dog trots behind them.
A tight suited businesswoman
hurries past an old black dude
fishing, she crosses the street just
as luxury car turns, the driver
multitasking on cell phone curses
out the window — then the thrashing
in the sedge again, surface rippling.
This world wavers, returns, breathes.
—
Ray McNiece is the author of eleven books of poems and monologues most recently Bone Key Sutra, Love Song for Cleveland, and Breath Burns Away, New Haiku (Red Giant Press, 2019). From 2020 to 2023, he served as the Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights. He received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. In 2022, he was awarded a $50,000 Poet Laureate Grant from the American Academy of Poetry for his Poem for Cleveland Project. www.raymcniece.com.
