south of st. paul,above the river

•

     morning sunlight breaks around the
  fringe of treetops below the road.
   outside the window of the greyhound bus
           the high steel poles of electrical towers,
     bush-tangled slope dropping
             through blue shade to the river flats,
   a chainlink fence creaks brittle around
                                      a factory parking lot.
green and shimmering   the river islands
spread away into gasping yellow light.
   through the hiss of the bus engine
              years of weather and silence
      pour up away into the reachless
                                  lake of sky,
                 in the mounting morning heat.

   in the enormous shrugging light
      now, there, far out above the water
   a heron draws across the sky,
  the slow long-armed rowing motion,
      neck S-bent and pulled in, legs
                bare yellow stretched out behind,
      blue-gray scrap tracing the openness,
                                  cool and regardless.

flows away and out of sight. the road
     bends toward south following the river,
             rippling and mud-green,
                                 backwaters of silence.

and on into the green hills, the yellow
      fields away south of the city,
                        tucked red barn, silver-gleaming
       silo, quick whisk of a bridge
          over a stream gully, swooped
       in gray particled space,
                             pocketed in stillness.