A THOUSAND WORDS

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

BLUE HERON OF HAPPINESS

I DON’T THINK THERE could be a better way to start one of the biggest days of my life. I was surrounded by family, which was nice, and the diet warden had approved a temporary suspension of the bacon ban, so breakfast was immensely satisfying. But the showstopper was the heron.

I was walking through the living room and saw my soon-tobe-son-in-law Dan gesturing vigorously for me to come out on the porch with him. Dan was in the middle of an early business call to London. He gave me the shhh signal with one hand and pointed over the house using the other as he pressed his phone to his ear with his shoulder. There on the peak of the roof stood a blue heron.

We don ’t get herons here in the woods. At least one patrols the ponds along the creek down in the hollow, but the web of branches on the hill doesn ’t allow for large wings, especially when the trees are dense with leaves this time of year and sightlines disappear. In the understory that deer have cleared, the owls and red-tails that fly regular sorties from the surrounding oaks and birches drop out of the branches and fly beneath the canopy. There are lots of tree trunks and plenty of obstacles, and the heron is nowhere near as aerobatic or light on its wings as a hawk. It’ s a big bird built for open spaces: easily four or five feet long with a wingspan of six.

The heron stood at the top of the bedroom roof, with his neck extended and beak pointing up to the sky, like a spire. He (she, it) could be the one I pass at the pond when I take Jack

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