Green Heron emerges, feathery etchings merged with wavering rings of light, watery creature being born, borne on its own circumferential shell, seemingly arising from water’s spring-like coils rather than radiating, afloat in scalloped splendor—Botticelli’s Venus darkly reimagined. Water, perturbed, becomes camouflage, deception, invention, amalgamation of fluid gravity wave and light wave—volcanic bird islet, rising unexpectedly from green depths, eyes the world, eyes us observers, pauses while still almost figment, almost imaginary, part and parcel with all the confusion of reflection and refraction, the striated abstraction of the world shimmering, simmering on the surface of this pond.

Green Heron (photograph) © by Elaine Soulé

All rights reserved. Image appears here with photographer’s permission.

Bio: Elaine Soulé

Bio: Roy J. Beckemeyer