BLUE HERON

The Blue Heron and the cross stand on either side of a crabapple tree in perfect stillness. Behind them is the lake on a calm day, no ripples, no fish jumping, and no boats. The lake is grayish, like the sky. The moment is quiet, reflective.

First the Blue Heron looks westward, towards the cross on her right. After a long while she turns her head to look eastwards, to the left, away from the cross. The mood changes from quiet introspection to hopefulness.

A friend wrote me about the dry and sad places of the soul—his, mine, and everybody’s. I have been ruminating about my own dry and barren places and figured that these are my memories of feeling unfulfilled, like the time when left my final job. What should have been a happy celebration of 8 years of enjoyable hard work turned into a damp squib. The sadness is still there even though the event is well past—an unclear ending.

The Blue Heron looks toward this painful place, and eventually turns her head away, staring to the east where the sun rises. She seems to be looking at the flowerpots on our neighbor’s deck. I find that a profusion of colors is worth looking at, and the colors soak deep into my being. But I wonder what the heron sees there. The cross seems forgotten for the time being.

This cross had washed up on our lakeshore in a storm and planted itself on the rocks. It brought sadness, memories of things lost, people lost and buried. It made me uncomfortable and I planned to go and remove it. But I didn’t, thinking someone else may have planted it there for a reason.  After all, our neighbor’s elderly father had just passed away. The coming of the Blue Heron shifted me to a philosophical level. Like the Holy Spirit, the Blue Heron arrived from nowhere, landed in this very particular spot and spoke to me of redemption and renewal.