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I sink on the tide past heaving irrigation pumps,

under bridges loud with afternoon business

and pleasure, every twenty minutes a pickup

carrying farm workers and tools rattles

the levee road, passing between heavy

partly sunken trees with roots

partly exposed, partly visible,

impassable.

I keep partial track of the birds

easily visible: stubborn blue heron on a mud bank,

watching me approach and pass, indifferently;

snowy egrets hanging briefly suspended above rushes,

stilting shallow areas;

green herons leaping out of shelter,

on foot over mud and rocks, heavy cover, shadow,

wearing sublime camouflage, croaking,

alarmed;

a turkey vulture perched mid-canopy,

looking away toward

winding levee roads

upright electrical towers of lonesome steel,

glare of sunset.

Night highway 99, full afternoon sun, swallow mud crusting underside of bridge,

no swallows; black-capped phoebes arranged every few dozen yards

suspended from grape vines, clinging to bare twigs

out over slowing water—

robins are close enough to hear, but not see;

a hawk has landed in the sun on a bare limb

wings at sides partly open, resembling

a book yet to read, gazing down, eyes

alertly on mine;

drifting into still water, the hunting

kingfishers call, the hawks sweep

behind sun-fired trees,

rising and turning on wingtips,

fierce voices on the wind—

the water has slightly reversed course;

changing the entire design,

moving me upstream—

delta breeze brushes a light wave,

slaps gently to multiply the gentle deliberate

sensation of tidewater surging, plenty more behind,

vast waterways all deep, all submerged

pushing sunken bodies upstream

with gradual force, unmistakable; gentle distant green bends

cottonwoods high over levee road; live oaks filtering savage light;

beer cans shining in front of

an old car seat taken out and set up--

farmworkers sit watching the river,

leaving an orderly pile of cans

blinking among piled levee rocks;

the current draws patterns around sunken wood,

equal to, then greater, filling mud pastures

and swelling reedbeds, the reflecting lagoons

reaching deep into fields of onion, corn, pear;

the Pacific Ocean tilts,

pushes me upstream between saturated banks,

a concentrated flock of robins moves northeast

out of the fields, crossing water like a compass bearing

aimed at home trees;

the sun drops below treeline,

where nothing could possibly happen

beyond vines, mud, confusion,

gliding without effort, steering

broad corners with a few

careful dips of the paddle,

letting tide lift and push,

the celebrated daily rhythm containing all

weights, all colors, all tastes;

toward home fields,

gliding over shallow bottom, water moving

around obstructions, broad triangular lines

inscribed upon still surfaces, a silvery

business of reflection and geometry,

bound with time.

#heron #hawk #kingfisher #phoebe #water