A half-hour after dawn
on a morning in October
as clear and calm
as the sound
of your own name,
a blue heron will light
upon the fronds
of a kelp bed
a quarter mile offshore
and remain there
motionless as a spear.

That morning,
if you slip a kayak
along the edge
of the bed and grab
a strand of the plant
below the surface,
the craft will anchor
and the bird
will not lift away.

Then if you are still,
the two of you
will slowly start to rise
and fall in rhythm
together
on the same wave
while the sky deepens
and you understand,
for the first time
in your life, perhaps,
why this moment is poetry.