Since I stroll in the woods more often <br />than on this frequented path, it's usually <br />trees I observe; but among fellow humans <br />what I like best is to see an old woman <br />fishing alone at the end of a jetty, <br />hours on end, plainly content. <br />The Russians mushroom-hunting after a rain <br />trail after themselves a world of red sarafans, <br />nightingales, samovars, stoves to sleep on <br />(though without doubt those are not <br />what they can remember). Vietnamese families <br />fishing or simply sitting as close as they can <br />to the water, make me recall that lake in Hanoi <br />in the amber light, our first, jet-lagged evening, <br />peace in the war we had come to witness. <br />This woman engaged in her pleasure evokes <br />an entire culture, tenacious field-flower <br />growing itself among the rows of cotton <br />in red-earth country, under the feet <br />of mules and masters. I see her <br />a barefoot child by a muddy river <br />learning her skill with the pole. What battles <br />has she survived, what labors? <br />She's gathered up all the time in the world <br />--nothing else--and waits for scanty trophies, <br />complete in herself as a heron.<br /><br />Denise Levertov<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-great-black-heron/
