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At Shearness Pool
After rain sandpipers snoop
for food at the runoff pond
by the old tennis courts, caught
in the tides of migration.
I ask a painter at his easel
how to live. He says to choose
exacting silence. Eight turkeys,
not really wary, step gracefully
out of the brush. Like a hunter,
I hold my breath. It’s sudden
joy to spot an owl mobbed
by blackbirds, find orioles
hidden like lovers, like fat
jewels. I’m happy eating
my tuna sandwich
and watching an eagle
across Shearness Pool. She stuns
me to stillness. I ask a hiker
how to live. She says
to watch silver water just
as the eagle lifts her wings.
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About the Author: Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. Her poetry has recently appeared in Concho River Review, Dodging the Rain, and Philadelphia Stories. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the most recent in 2020.
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Image Credit: “A beautiful scene of some sandpipers at sunset” courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (public domain)
As It Ought To Be 