after Wallace Stevens
Over the sluggish Tennessee River
giant heron swoops and lands
like folded blue fabric.
Oahu, night heron zings like a green
dart across the water, snakes out
his long neck, swallows
a baby duckling
whole.
Heron nesting-tree along the Clinch—
squawking, squabbling, mega-henpecking—
overcrowded apartment complex.
Someone will get booted out.
Migratory great blue—
only fearful wading bird in the Galápagos—
skitters away as I approach.
Golden-winged at day’s end,
perched on southeast wing
of my house, heron dazzles
in twilight sun.
A two-heron day is a magic day.
What can you not do, just by
willing it to happen?
Diane M. Williams has a Ph.D. in French Literature, and she taught college-level French for many years before joining the creative team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as an editorial manager. Her poetry has appeared in One Trick Pony Review, Bluestem Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, Black Moon Magazine, The Avocet, and The Bluebird Word. She has authored two collections of poetry through Lunamoth Press, including Night in the Garden (2020) and a new collection entitled Smooth Appearances (2026). Diane has lived in Knoxville since 1991. She is active in area writers’ groups and currently serves on the board of Tennessee Mountain Writers.
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**Featured image credit: Armin Forster from Pixabay
I read this poem multiple times, as it so evocatively captures the range, behaviors and beauty of the herons. They are among my favorite birds to photograph. Inspired, I browsed back through all my heron images with a new appreciation. One photo of a great blue heron was taken just below Chickamauga Dam in Tennessee. I was struck by the contrast between the fisherman at the base of the dam with their fancy bass boats and elaborate fishing gear, and the graceful ease of the fish-gulping heron.