You think you’ve just spotted that same black crowned night heron
but it’s not the one. It belongs to a siege of loners.
A schism of bishops. A wisp of a singular hope
stepping astride a few floating pine needles
riding the heavy tides. You, too, are singular. You, too, stride
upon your own and others’ dreams: to survive, of course—
it’s what we do, sometimes in beauty,
sometimes in ruins. Sometimes we are the beauty, the ruins.
—
Sheri Reda works as a writer, presenter, performer, and the founder of Flow and Moment, LLC. Her poems have appeared in the award-winning Dear Human, published by Paloma Press, The Healer’s Burden, published by University of Iowa Press, and in Eocene, The Examined Life, HQ Quarterly, Hay(na)Ku, Galatea Resurrects, and other journals. Her stories have appeared most recently in anthologies by Chicago Story Press. Her chapbook entitled Stubborn is available through Moria Press.
