Startled, he unfurled his sail-like wings and rose from where he stalked the grassy bank. “Hey!” I yelled. The blue heron took off flying low across the pond. “You!” It’s hard to know what words to use when a wild bird of prey no matter how astonishingly beautiful, is eyeing beloved koi. The truth is that he may be focusing on the frogs which are smaller than the koi and have fewer sharp edges. After a two-year hiatus frogs have returned, I’ve missed their splashing as I approach, and their night song. A turtle, resembling a clump of dirt or a good-size rock, the very opposite of the elegant bird, appears among the feeding koi. Mud and grass cling to its shell. The featureless head reaches out gulping fish pellets, each gulp, a tiny splash. Standing defiantly on the other bank, like a crane on an ancient Chinese scroll. The heron, expert at hiding, takes one haughty step behind a leafy branch. “I can still see you!” Or is that a patch of dappled sunlight? /////// Read another piece by Betty MacDonald, Tiny Lee, The Teenage Queen, here on Lightwood. Enter her name on our Search link. Her newest book will be published by Codhill Press. ///// Writer/actor Betty MacDonald contributed to the writing of and performed in TMI’s “What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting.” Her essay “Before Roe v. Wade” appears in the anthology Get Out of My Crotch! Her work is included in the anthologies 80 Things to Do When You Turn 80, Open House, and the recently released Better with Age. Betty has read frequently at Spoken Word, a monthly gathering of writers and readers in Kingston, NY, and at TMI Project events in Rhinebeck, Woodstock, Kingston, NY. She presented her essay “First Love” for Read650 at the Cell Theatre in New York City. She performed “First Love” again for Read650’s Best Of event at Vassar College. Her Read 650’s Mother’s Day presentation, “Daughter of Twins” is available on YouTube. Also, on YouTube her reading of her essay “Not Jewish Enough” from Read650’s event Jew-ish. Betty hosts Words Carry Us, a series of Livestream readings from Green Kill in Kingston, NY. For more than 35 years, storytelling has influenced Betty’s work as a performer with Community Playback Theatre, an improvisational acting company in the Hudson Valley.
Lightwood 
Now I want to hear the heron’s reply! Lovely.
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