Looking for my lost self
I walk the Wetlands path.
A redwing’s quiet conk-la
and its shrill reeee! announce

I’m trespassing. When I step
too close to his mate’s nest,
she chitters her tink, tink, tink.
He flies in, a kamikaze aiming

for my head. Okay, Okay,
I say, quickening my step
away from his marsh mate,
I’m willing to watch

from a distance. A mallard
mother, camouflaged
among cattails, broods
her eggs, guarded

by her green-headed
hero. At my approach
he shifts, stands,
takes a few uneasy steps.

I have not come here
to bring fear, only to
get in touch with some
part of me hidden within,

something released only
in the presence of the wild,
the unpredictable,
the unspoiled. I turn

to leave, still not at rest.
A great blue heron
lands on the water
like a blessing.

~ Wilda Morris

Published in the anthology, Natural Voices: Celebrating Nature with Opened Eyes (Natural Land Institute, 2018).