Poem: Heron

This week’s Poet’s Corner contribution comes from emerging writer and poet Helena Bryony Parker.

Apr 14, 2021, updated Mar 18, 2025
Photo: Dorothy Jenkins / Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Dorothy Jenkins / Wikimedia Commons

Heron

I cycle at dusk, most days.
Today I left at high noon,
the light scorched the damp from my skin
and the wind drew me to tears.

I saw a heron,
propped by a dead arm of driftwood.
Mangroves
half sunk, stick their noses to the wind.

Heron, resolute, eyes fixed beyond
the silent erosion gnawing the sand bank
that churns the eucalypt-green water into mud.

In command of the wind, the violence of living,
migratory bird
he waits for the season’s bloom
the blood in the water to signal –
he is fleeting of this place.

Helena Bryony Parker is an emerging writer and poet based in Sydney. Her work can also be found (here) in Volume 7 of the poetry journal ‘Not Very Quiet (September, 2020)’.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.

 

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