They call you blue. I say you are rather gray. The mood you put me in when standing at the edge of the pond to fish out the koi. Brilliant orange harpooned on the beak. They say a koi can live for fifty years.
Now I watch heron on the beach, the silly legs straggling along the sand, or the patient one roosting in the tree over the lagoon. There is a white heron on the lake today. Hard to forget the gray.
predator and prey
leave mark on gray windy sky
beauty in color
________________
the oldest known koi was Hanako, who lived for 226 years
dVerse prompt for haibun in gray
wordshophop 
You painted the portrait SO well. More than I knew about koi, by the way!
LikeLike
Koi are cool critters. I once lived with a man who kept them. I agree about the herons being grey rather than blue. You haibun portrays these birds beautifully. We frequently have them in our pond, standing around watching the world go by.
LikeLike
I like watching birds on the beach or wherever they happen to be.
LikeLike
They can be so dull – so fitting with there territory – but when the take flight or when the sun hits them just so – they are fabulous. Enjoyed the video. They are like little musical notes along the ocean’s shoreline.
LikeLike
The ‘not forgetting the grey’ was particularly poignant.
LikeLike
A beautiful portrait of a heron, Jane. I love the way you address the bird directly and thank you for the video clip!
LikeLike
Herons are like gangly teens trying to play basketball, but still haven’t developed their coordination. I loved your description of the water’s edge and the fishermen there.
Dwight
LikeLike
Beautiful portrait of the Heron.
LikeLike
Love the heron… and yes the blue is hard to see, but they are great hunters too…
LikeLike
I take great delight in the blue heron (gray really, you are right) that is my neighbor in the summer. So I took great delight in your haibun.
LikeLike
The have more grey than blue against the sky, now that you say it I can see that much clearly. the line brilliant orange was a good pause in the haibun, loved that splash of colour among the grey.
LikeLike
well done.
we waited for hours for a glimpse of a rail. Just as it appeared, shy bird, a great blue ate it.
LikeLike
That must have been shocking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
only thing more shocking would have been if it had come after us.
LikeLike
You’ve captured well the way all life (and death, as part of the circle) is intermingled.(K)
LikeLike
Thank you. I didn’t know it at the time I wrote the poem that the heron is symbolic of long life. It eats a koi that could have lived 200 years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes our subconscious seems to tap into universal symbols…
LikeLike
Life in the wild beautifully portrayed in your haibun…and video 🙂
LikeLike