Once, in twilight woods,
he bent to pass beneath
a fallen tree, didn’t see
the branch, pointed like a beak.
Today he watches a heron feed
at the shore. He sees loss waits
like the heron does. Patiently. The rare
blur of its head, then still. So still
he loses it in the rocks, disguised by dusk.
The heron strikes down, blinding quick,
at water’s glass top. Comes up
with its reflection. Nothing more.
It waits. It will strike again.
Published online January 01, 2011
Richard Osler is a poet and specialty money manager living in Duncan, British Columbia. His non-fiction writing was included in one of the volumes of the Morningside Papers, written by the late Peter Gzowski. He was also a business columnist on CBC’s Morningside with Gzowski for nine years. His poems have been accepted or published in the US and Canada in CV2, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, island.writer MAGAZINE, The Other Journal and Ruminate Magazine. He placed first in the Victoria Writers’ Society 2010 9th Annual Writing Competition for poetry and second in the 2009 CV2 Show Me the Book contest. In 2011 he was shortlisted for The Malahat Review Open Season Awards in poetry. Richard leads poetry writing retreats and works with recovering addicts using poetry as a source for transformation.
