Each time I take the train I sit
on what I call the “water” side
to catch a glimpse of birds.
The marsh, shot through
with channels to the Sound,
never fails to offer gulls
and the occasional raft of ducks.
Some mornings in the early light
egrets haloed by ripples
wade the inlets shored
in pine, or stand
porcelain-lamp still. Their feet
sink like well-kept secrets,
mud-slippered. Oh, to lift
from the silt of my mistakes—
my whole body stretched into arrival.

Lisa Rhoades
from her book Strange Gravity
Bright Hill Press 2004

reprinted with permission of the poet