Half-a-dozen Great White Egrets
fly up the creek to light
in a sycamore to plot fishing
a slow pool for frogs and minnows—
pick their stations before
wading in from the cobbled shore.
None here when I was a boy,
they also hunt gophers, stand
like sentinels scattered in the pasture
with the Great Blue Herons
atop tailings from spring cleaning
waiting for movement to impale.
There are no borders south of here
where they come from, no racial
tension with so much else to do.