CHANGE OF STATE
I peer into Gorst Creek at what might be a bone
some angled fish bone I'd never known of before.
The creek tries to distract me,
reflecting sky
folding ripples over
but after a while of squinting I can make it out.
What a ghost must see
How disturbing,
to find your beak downstream of your body.
The rest, limped over a log five feet away,
unrecognizable
but for one skinny heron leg
waving tentatively in the current
like a shy bather testing the water with her toe.
Things take shape in the water when you look long enough
thin sticks are feathers and ribs
the wayward beak with its piercing
absent eye.
Soon enough the feathers are washed
of all but their stiff shaft
and the ribs have settles between pebbles.
And soon enough you won't know
your body from a bundle of sticks
your beak from a fishbone
Soon enough you'll watch the riverbed
reflecting to the dark hollow
of your piercing
absent eye.
© Darcy Stumbaugh, November 9, 2000
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