Song for Someone Far Off

As I come to the lake, a heron in the far shallows disentangles his blue wings from the loose-knotted mist and rises, slowly, ponderously, wheeling away to gain altitude to make it over hilltop oaks, beyond which he disappears, leaving, in his generosity, the whole glittering waterscape to the subtle and clandestine frogs, the mud hens, the red wings clattering their calls in the cattails, an old rowboat, and me.