A few weeks ago my poet friend, Athena Kildagaard, excitedly told me one of her poems, “Translation,” was going to be published in an anthology on Great Blue Herons called “Broad Wings, Long Legs … A Rookery of Heron Poems.” Within moments an order was placed through the publisher, North Star Press of St. Cloud, and what a fine collection it has turned out to be, for I’ve long loved these beautiful birds.

Even the cover is artfully donel, And if you’re one of those who read the jacket statements, check this comment by Chuck Dayton, an environmental attorney and activist: “Herons are magical. They draw you into their world without moving …” 

So true. I’m just as guilty of that spiritual seduction as Chuck, the dozens of poets featured in the fascinating anthology along with countless avian and nature lovers.

Poets and herons share a lot of same … a strived beauty in form, a sense of seemingly meditative isolation, sudden flights of escape from perceived angst. This can come across in watching a heron at rest in old, worn trees, or quietly stalking an unseen prey, posing quietly in a small prairie stream, and yes, especially in the beauty of flight as they lift away from even the stealthiest canoe, easing lazily in flight downriver past leafy dogwood and cottonwood much as a poet edges from a crowd for solitude and a pad.

Eventually when you hear the beauty of their crafted words, carefully chosen, words stalked much like lone heron eyeing an unsuspecting frog, then finally, with the power of their chosen and spoken words, Athena and her brethren of poets stand poised to provide a mesmerizing reading of their artistic endeavors. 

It’s all poetry, both in form or in word, in feathered flight or presented word. What a wonderful marriage of nature and language.

Yes, this collection of poetry pays tribute to one of nature’s more splendid birds, the Great Blue Heron. Our family has kept a keen eye on these lonesome avian artists for many years. Sighting her first heron of the year meant that my late wife, Sharon Yedo White, had at last witnessed the closure of winter; that spring was soon upon us; that nearby waters were finally free of ice and the prairie meadows would once again bloom. Yes, for her herons were the artfully flying harbingers of a changing season, necks bent in flight with legs stretched behind straight as an arrow, a slow blur of powder blue, gray and white, all crowned with a short hooded cape of blackness.

Sharon loved these curve-necked fliers as much as I love my Sandhill Cranes, and perhaps for many of the same reasons. Grace. Perfect form and beauty, in waterside pose or in flight. along with an independent will. While I’d suggest that herons are much more solitary than cranes, collectively their individual beauty gives both species a select space in our appreciation of avian artistry.

We didn’t see many Great Blue Herons in my youth, although our move to Minnesota brought us closer to herons than ever before. Our first two homes were along, first, the St. Croix and then later, the Little Verillion River near Hastings. I soon discovered the beauty of fly fishing from canoes, and early mornings in a canoe flipping flies for bluegill or bass in the reedy shallows sometimes allowed me to sneak up on stalking, solitary herons. Once in Camp Lake in central Minnesota, a heron eyed me cautiously while strutting on a wooden dock as I quietly stroked my paddle. I expected flight at any moment, yet it defiantly held ground. 

Canoeing the rivers means you can rarely keep up with skittish herons as they keep a respectful distance between themselves and the paddlers. Yet, one late August or early September morning our fishing party of a handful of canoes that had pushed off from Skalbakken County Park below Sacred Heart passed several nearly full grown youngsters perched along the riverine bank. Back then there was live rookery tucked close to a nearby river bend, so we suspected these were the nearly grown from the spring hatch. Perhaps fear or even survival had yet to enter their collective mindset. Who knows, yet it was an unexpected and welcomed surprise.

Their grace and beauty has always attracted my photographic eye. My sister still displays a Christmas gift of one of my first images of a Great Blue, one I photographed in a wetland just west of Willmar one evening on the way home from fishing. That one morning fishing on Camp i would have loved to have had a camera although by then I had learned that cameras and canoes are not necessarily good companions, Yet, I can hardly pass up an opportunity of capturing new and different images. I’m seduced by the magic, drawn into their solitary stealth, captured by those pleasing plumes of color and awed by such graceful flight. 

One of the poems, written by James Silas Rogers, called “On the Cannon River” … which we canoed dozens of times … hit so close to home:

“… Our quiet, passing canoe

untethers their blue-gray forms.

They lift

and in solemn, slow strokes

row the air, move downstream.

Without wanting,

we chase a Great Blue for miles,

in pursuit of solitude.”