For Orley… On the day before her birth
August 31, 2009
With much love, from Nonny


At sunrise on the day before you were born,
ten Great Blue Herons perched on kelp-covered boulders
as the briny water of Belfast harbor lapped around them.
In predawn stillness, they waited. One after another,

they turned their slender necks to bathe in the hint of yellow
that lightened the August sky. Seagulls skimmed tank grey waters,
cormorants stood motionless on bobbing buoys, and the Great Blues waited.

Some distance away, your mother stirred in her sleep. Without wakening,
your father folded a protective arm over her belly, drawing the two of you
closer to him on the last of your prenatal mornings. Back in the harbor,
one heron flapped his wings, breaking the stillness of the ripening day.

Rising skyward, he cut a path through sea smoke toward cedar
and soon disappeared amidst the silhouette of the distant shore.
Within your mother’s womb, reassured by the steady beat of her heart,
you, too, turned toward the light of day.