Poem: Little Gods

What is my intention in writing these notes? To say something about the writing of poetry? Not what is taught in poetry classes, but the friction point in the hazel twig, the spark taking hold.

And thus, fear of the dark and the strangeness of herons combine to make a poem.  

I'd been startled by a soft thud above my head. A heron had landed on the conservatory roof. I’d never seen a heron at such close quarters, and certainly not from underneath. It settled itself, raking its impossibly long thin toes across the Perspex. It was an unnerving sound, as other-worldly as the bird’s pterodactyl-like appearance, but it was a sound I recognise, one that late at night had often frightened me. That herons are out and about in the dark I know, for I’ve seen one fishing in the river at midnight, but it hadn’t occurred to me they would land on my roof.

Little Gods

Herons hunch

on the roof ridge,

grey as

imagined terrors,

little gods

to be placated

lest they give me

the evil eye.

© Sheila Wild