Blue, Green, Red and Purple: Egrets In A Pasture
Betty Collins sees something of the vampire in egrets which prowl amid the grazing cattle.
Fat cattle in the green grass
Dam shining, sky’s blue
Black and white cows, and a dingy bull
Grazing like a slow-motion film.
The movement of a hoof takes from one aeon
To the next; the swing of a tail
Is an accidental interruption which in true time
Would be a blur.
Among them, visitors from another dimension,
Prowl the egrets. I don’t think the cows
Are aware of their presence;
But you and I, the onlookers,
Have second sight; and to us they stand out
Clear, clear, crystal :
Condensations of ectoplasm :
Bright spots, bright lights puncturing holes
In the grass and the sky and the cattle.
On the backs of the cattle they hunch
Like the old man of the sea
Like a familiar spirit
And their little, knowing, vampire eyes
Smell out the blood of the tick.
