*Charles

*Charles

by Melinda Cadwallader

From the start, this heron was a “he”

a Charlie, Henry, Richard, some old sport

(moved me appropriately)

a stately being, I suppose.

We settled on Charles.

After the first encounter, it was always,

“Oh, Charles, there you are! I’ve been looking for you all day!”

I’d say, with the tone of a martini in one hand, cigarette in the other.

He’d barely look up -

but not in a rude way.

I felt he acknowledged me

to some degree.

“Hello, dear.” He’d murmur, his sight fixed on the pond,

reading it like the Wall Street Journal.

I imagined he sipped brandy in the evening,

his cool blue feathers a smoking jacket

horn rimmed glasses, of course,

a pipe, perhaps.

So confident, my Charles,

and quite enjoys his solitude,

not alarmed or skittish, when someone, something, new

arrived on the scene.

As for me,

perhaps he sensed my wonder

accepted the invitation of intuition

leading me to him morning upon morning

trusting the innocence of my gaze.

I always kept my distance - in the beginning at least,

admiring from afar, endowed