goodbyes

I understand why a heron flees at my arrival.
Crashing through the underbrush, I have broken the spell, and things which were silent and unacknowledged must flap away impressively deeper into the growth as the light dies in the autumn sky.
Yet still every time I am saddened. The heartbreak is always fresh as for a moment, the heron and I stare, stark recognition and the tremendous quivering fear that I have transgressed some boundary of his domain. Do I hold my breath? Do I take one cautious step, shift my weight, try to hold every ounce of muscle still to my will? Is that wrong, as caught in his gaze I try to be closer to touch the stabbing wildness even as it touches my memory, that image, the subtle discovery of other resounding deep and far down inside my mind? Do I glance down for a second breaking eye contact, and what has made me uneasy in the face of this unwavering stranger? Does the heron's gaze weigh more than his sudden flight, winging above the riverbed and beyond the treelined banks, yellowing for a moment with late afternoon sun? The rare gold of this memory is measured in sadness.

It is very precious to me.

I will keep enacting this scene, I will crash and flail in the underbrush on autumn walks, always at sunset, and when some minute change, a stillness invoked from the air makes me aware of the heron's gaze, I will be still, I will be sad, I will be perfect, and he will leave. The tragedy thus continues, how could I wish it otherwise, I for my glimpse of eternity, followed by the reminder of his power to withdraw. I am myself, always arriving just in time to see him leave-- which is too late-- always the outsider, always too loud. There is something the heron wants, and to my dismay it cannot be me. But if I am myself, I am part of this scene too, I do what is in my nature, so my presence is no more unsettling than the heron's. What do I tell him that he cannot bear, from which he must turn away and fly? What do I say in my unwitting pursuit about the wildness of the soul?