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Chastened

The siren song of life
in the Sweetwater Swamp
called to me,
so I told Mari
I was going to patch together
some errands
with some birds.

"Is that an egret up there?"
I asked the man with the tripod.
"It is," he said, "and I am waiting
for it to fly, but it won't."

I said I would walk obtrusively
to the tree, looking dangerous,
and the man with the tripod said
he would owe me a beer.


 No beer.

The egret didn't care.
It scarcely noticed.
I did not look, I supposed,
like the tree-climbing kind,
and even less like food.

Turtle was even more
disdainful.
Late October sun
in Tucson
is a slow bake.



 Duck,
or whatever
its biological niche--
I am no birder:
I am observer--
cared even less.

The last guy who leaped
into the second-hand lake
is still down there somewhere,
holding his nose.
Just to be sure,
I went back to Egret again,
giving him one last chance
to let me know
how fearsome I looked,
and Egret looked
away.

The top of the food chain
got back into his pickup,
chastened.

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