Poem for Wednesday and Great Blue Heron

Many Miles
By Mary Oliver

The feet of the heron,
under those bamboo stems,
hold the blue body,
the great beak

above the shallows
of the pond.
Who could guess
their patience?

Sometimes the toes
shake, like worms.
What fish
could resist?

Or think of the cricket,
his green hooks
climbing the blade of grass—
or think of camel feet

like ear muffs,
striding over the sand—
or think of your own
slapping along the highway,

a long life,
many miles.
To each of us comes
the body gift.

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My Tuesday was very uneventful, but most of my holiday cards are in the mail -- I'm waiting for Shutterfly to ship the last 10 because I knew they'd have a freebie at some point this past weekend, and those are going to people who are getting packages or who live in the neighborhood so I can hand-deliver them -- and I got some chores done outside the house, so that's all good. My cats all absolutely refused to eat chicken for lunch, making me wonder whether there was something wrong with the can.

We watched The Flash, which wound up the Bloodwork arc with lots of cliches and nothing that moved me, then we watched the end of the season of The Crown, which despite the cast is just so hard to like right now with Prince Andrew all over the news -- their level of denial and self-absorption on the show is insane, I mean, the deaths of children in a mining accident in Wales ends up being all about whether the Queen can cry? Blah. Here's the heron we saw at Brookside Gardens last weekend: