WHITE EGRET

Alone at the center of the shoal,

pale dot ringed by motion.

No stillness but itself,

transfixed in three dimensions.

Chill water, gritty sand, the wind insistent,

spinning a momentum

of circle within circle,

their orbits harmonious. Then

sudden wingbeats, and it climbs a pewter sky,

the center gone, all unity displaced

for anarchies of shove and grind, collide.

Just so, this human world before us—

fissured mountains, shattered stones, unsettled seas.