Poem: Great Blue Heron

By Emily Abedon |

I see you are back again, my teacher.
Your stillness in silence, today’s lesson,
speaks of finding focus within life’s blur.
Your form presents disciplined perfection.
Blue-gray gold, this is present and alert.
Citadel cadets should come here to learn
tidal pace, the patience of the river.
When you fly away from here, Great Heron,
the essence of your lesson will remain,
reflected on the inlet’s curved mirror,
becoming clearer through my window pane,
and rippling far past this inner harbor.
I see now it is time for you to go.
Every day the ebb. Every day the flow.

About Emily Abedon: A recipient of the 2013 Beatrice Ravenel Prize from the Poetry Society of South Carolina, Emily Abedon is a member of the Long Table Poets, a Charleston-based group of writers who are students of Richard Garcia. The mother of four children with whom she loves to bird watch on Sullivan’s Island, Emily is also a journalist and an advocate for safe housing. Co-founder with her husband, Todd, of the nonprofit Operation Home, she wrote and produced “State of Disrepair,” a documentary short film that calls attention to the epidemic of unsafe homes among low-income residents of South Carolina.