The Snowy Egret
An egret stalks as slowly as a dream
Dressed knowingly in feathery white, a night
Dream, not a daydream, since the scaled-leg scheme
Of daytime thought makes fantasies take flight,
Bright reveries that aren’t so tight and slow
As nightmares or as ordinary scenes
Of therapeutic spooling there below
Our consciousness. The buffeted brain gleans
Unhealthy items to be faced up to
And then transmogrified to stuff that can
Be thrown away or buried. It can chew
The beauties that it finds, or as a fan
Of lace-like feathers waft them round the mind
And gently wait for fevers to unwind.