Poet of the week - Randall Mann

While browsing Poetry Daily, we found this piece by Randall Mann...

The Heron
Randall Mann

A pond the color of Oriental teas.
A heron refusing to look anywhere but east.

Mangroves flecked with a fire,
deep-set birches rife

with the wait for night. In stone,
the heron stares: the stoic tones

of the sky a storied procession of palms;
their red-tipped fronds, overhanging lamps.

Water-bird, it has been centuries since I felt
anything for you. You have been left:

look around. Why does the owl
rest on a goddess's shoulder while you wade so low?


From Complaint in the Garden, 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry for a First Book, (Zoo Press).