There’s too many 

poems about 

herons I hear.

So let’s say this:

as still as rocks

just some shoreline

decoration

until it strikes!

It spears a perch

then straightens up

and flips the fish

around and gulps

and gulps and gulps

then crouches down

and hurls itself

into the air – 

O magnificent

kangaroo!

P.S.

Personally 

speaking as a bird 

I’d be happy 

never to read 

another poem 

about people

(God forbid cats)



Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto; he now walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry in “the country north of Belleville”. At time of writing, the beer he’d most recently drunk was DAB Dortmunder Export, which does an excellent job of being beer.