This afternoon about 5:45 P. M. Things are growing!
Etude
I have been watching a Great Blue Heron
fish in the cattails, easing ahead
with the stealth of a lover composing a letter,
the hungry words looping and blue
as they coil and uncoil, as they kiss and sting.
Let’s say that he holds down an everyday job
in an office. His blue suit blends in.
Long days swim beneath the glass top
of his desk, each one alike. On the lip
of each morning, a bubble trembles.
No one has seen him there, writing a letter
to a woman he loves. His pencil is poised
in the air like the beak of a bird.
He would spear the whole world if he could,
toss it and swallow it live.
Ted Kooser
The Poetry Home Repair Manual,
University of Nebraska Press, 2005, page 136.
Three five-line stanzas, a little fairytale in 15 lines, just barely longer than a sonnet.
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