At the Edge of the Lagoon

In the thin moonlight,

we found ourselves by the lagoon,

where a congregation of boulders—

earth's silent sentinels—leaned in close.

Beneath the sky, freckled with starlight,

we stifled our breath.

There, at the gravel shore,

two herons, gray-blue phantoms, stood.

Frozen in their stalking,

spearing fish,

their stillness a dance of hunger,

swift strikes for wriggling prey.

Nature's quiet theater, inches away,

the wordless sermon of survival,

from fish to heron,

from silence to flight.

With a whisper of wings,

the herons ascended,

their lean bodies melting into foliage,

where nests wait, eggs hunger,

and the earth spins onward.