Photo: Hardy Inlet, Blackwood River, three pelicans in the shallows.
“Many pelicans fish by swimming in cooperative groups …” National Geographic
Pelicans Align
Just a grey October day where
the river reflects its sky so well,
a flash of white dazzles on the
far eastern shoreline
a painter’s bold smudge,
the air murmurs but doesn’t move,
gulls and terns circle and pass,
suddenly the daub of paint moves
and catches my eye,
five birds take to the sky
thermal surfers wheeling and circling,
soon five more, and another,
till forty pelicans align in a
grace that belies their size
and somehow the world seems
to be a better place.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
