blue heron shot/Snow White

My screen froze on the blue
heron shot.  Sunrise, twilight,
leave me emotional, lots. My
heart is fragile like an ancient

machine, lightly rusted gears,
extra space worn in between 
the links of the tenuous chains
holding it all together with

corroded springs made of steel
long pressed by the ancient
flesh. Recycled from conquered
folks' swords, thus, so blessed.
The stories grow into their own 
things, never really attached to 
what may have been.  Or even
what was History: propaganda

recorded after military victory.

She was the daughter of a
Mining Count, whose mother
had died, been mourned with
deep pride.  The apple of her
father's eye, clever and happy,
but the old man was lonely.

He found a woman of ambition,
and married again, but died
before his favorite could even

turn ten.  Time passes, the long 

seasons twist. Sometimes into
days, sometimes into mist. I
have heard that on occasion,
it can even be a true gift. But 

very rarely, in my experience.

Soldiers and wars, so the film
says, and the girl reborn from
a kiss in the tale, well, these

things never happened at all.

If the mines the family owned
were worked by young orphans
who suffered from malnutrition,
rickets, deformation, would

that change the story for you?
If they were her true friends
in desperate, failed tries to
escape plots of high nobility?

The bird hunts along the edge
of the bluff, almost casual,
disinterested, but willing to fit
amphibians and mammals, all,

deep into his gullet's fine grip.

Snow loved a Hapsburg Prince,
perhaps he also loved her; but
she was poisoned, possibly
by her lover, or his family.  She,

who was not of high nobility...
much has been written of
that ancient, Imperial family,
known to some here, certainly.

Hans Christian Andersen or
old Uncle Walt, in attempts
to profit from cultural gestalt,
seek to tell the story how we
want it to be.  Sales mendacity,
selling idles without truth,

telling lies as absolute proof.

There was a beautiful and very
smart girl, who tried to make
her own choices in a seriously
unforgiving world.  She laughed 

and loved true, kept well her
word, but had no wealth, and
fearsome enemies of which
she herself had never heard.

Alas, the true story ends sadly.   

The screen shot saves me,
although I know that sounds
crazy.  The bird is a moment,
frozen in predawn clarity, a
totem, perhaps, of my sanity,
gift of both tech and memory.  

For a time, the heron saves me.