Circles

In the morning the blue heron is busy

stepping, slowly, around the edge of the

pond. He is tall and shining. His wings, folded

against his body, fit so neatly they

make of him, when he lifts his shoulders and begins to rise

into the air, a great surprise. Also

he carries so light the terrible sword-beak. Then

he is gone over the trees.

I am so happy to be alive in this world

I would like to live forever, but I am

content not to. Seeing what I have seen

has filled me; believing what I believe

has filled me.

The first words of this page are

hardly thought of when the bird

circles back over the trees; it floats down

like an armful of blue flowers, a bundle of light

coming to refresh itself again in the black water, and I think:

maybe it is or it isn't the same bird-maybe it's

the first one's child, or the child of its child.

What I mean is, our deliverance from Time

and the continuance, if we only steward them well,

of earthly things. So maybe it's myself still standing here, or

someone else, like myself hot with the joy of this world, and

filled with praise.

Yesterday a young coyote walked across our lawn in the ripening dawn. Along the way to kayak the Suwannee, families of turkeys and deer adorned the highways, as did one lone feral pig. In the water one gator swam under our boats and mighty sturgeons jumped to our joy nearby. Juvenile Red-shouldered hawks and immature Little Blue Herons Herons kept closer to us on the banks than their parents would have, and on the way back, a raccoon scampered in front of my speeding car, closer to me than s/he should have been. So maybe it's myself writing to you this morning, or the gator, or the turkey, or the coyote - our very being a joy of this world worthy of incessant praise.

What would you do differently if you lived forever?