Mama Says Om - Purify

It's a cold night out on the lake in my canoe, and the last rays of the setting sun paint a shining trail across the water toward the battered paddle resting across my knees.

What am I doing out here on such a night? There are clouds of mist in the gorge, where the river enters the lake and in the darkness under the bridge. The wind is bracing, and it has a hollow sound as it ruffles through my bird's nest hair and goes dancing past my upturned collar into the trees along the shoreline. Here and there in the distance is a lighted cottage window and occasionally, there is the glow of a fireplace or wood stove.

There's only me out here in the night paddling along the shoreline - or rather, there is me, the rising moon and a single magnificent heron perched silent and still on her log by the beach. Both the heron and I feel purified on this early October evening on the lake. We feel scrubbed, cleansed and renewed, but whether our shared feeling arises from the last fingers of sunlight lingering on our heads, the lustrous moon peeking over the treetops, the dark lake below, the plangent solitude or the night wind anointing us - well, we have not decided that.

We're both burnished and rejuvenated, caught up in the magic of a chilly autumn evening, and it really doesn't matter where the feeling comes from. In a few days, my heron will lift her wings and fly south, and I shall be left here over the winter to wander the shoreline and remember.

Written for the lovely mamas at Mama Says Om, and special greetings to Lil!