Statio

For once, silence—
genuine calm. Forty minutes
on a tidal bight with a great blue
heron                  in the binoculars’
             sight.
                            Not frozen
but still.
             In a half hour, she barely turns
a full 360 degrees.
                                          Time to notice
the dark wingtip markings,
light not-blue-but-gray breast feathers,
the cobalt dash between the long beak
and dark-eyed crown.
                                           Expectation
gives way to awe, as each degree
thins her to a reed among reeds.

By sunset, barely an apostrophe
against the green marsh
                            what’s left of color
bleeding into water,
this resolve:
                                          to pause
to practice, to attend.

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Statio. One of the elements of Benedictine spiritual discipline, the practice of pausing between activities to become conscious of the moment, of the presence of God.