readings © Jon Bohrn (2000)

readings
(for Heather Long, L.A. poet)

She gathers us then	Blue herons are a mystery.
with the quiet grace of the heron		Heather Long
whose story she tells;
surveyor of a river's
fleeting current of words
that, like us, have been here all along
only she gives them meaning.
	Unassuming, she shares with us
	the smile in seeing our faults;
	dressing awareness in elegance
	she stands on the edge of our wilderness,
	watching the storms gather and fade into stillness
	as she shares our frailty,
	folding us in her words.
For the time that she speaks
I will drape myself
in the flowing garments she gives me,
cover against cold, embroidered
in shapes of our humanness, bettered;
in monarch colors of wings
that soar exaltation, still,
in the absence of breezes.

© Jon Bohrn (2000)