the heartprick of longitude or, what outlasts you

Profile of the Night Heron

by Anne Pierson Wiese

In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden the night

heron is on his branch of his tree, blue

moon curve of his body riding low

above the pond, leaves dipping into water

beneath him, green and loose as fingers.

On the far shore, the ibis is where

I left him last time, a black cypher

on his rock. These birds, they go to the right

place every day until they die.

There are people like that in the city,

with signature hats or empty attaché cases,

expressions of private absorption fending

off comment, who attach to physical

locations—a storefront, a stoop, a corner,

a bench—and appear there daily as if for a job.

They negotiate themselves into the pattern

of place, perhaps wiping windows, badly,

for a few bucks, clearing the stoop of take-out

menus every morning, collecting the trash

at the base of the WALK/DON'T WALK sign

and depositing it in the garbage can.

Even when surfaces change, when the Mom & Pop

store becomes a coffee bar, when the park

benches are replaced with dainty chairs and a pebble

border, they stay, noticing what will never change:

the heartprick of longitude and latitude

to home in on, the conviction that life

depends, every day, on what outlasts you.