Labor Day, Upstate NY
The familiar great blue heron visits again on Labor Day,
Passing overhead with lazy sweep of wings
And raspy cry,
Before settling at water’s edge to tiptoe
In the chilly shallows where
The deer and the bear slaked their summer thirsts.
A hurricane threatens from the south,
Wetting the empty strands from Daytona to Montauk,
Summer crowds vanished
Like the newly dead.
The great blue heron, too, is soon to go,
Chasing the hummingbirds toward Mexico.
Rummaging in the drawer this morning
To fetch that forgotten sweat shirt,
Suddenly welcome again.
—Gary Lee Alderson
This article appears in October 2016.
