The Pond Heron 

                        The dead don't write
                        but my cousin's letter arrives three days

                        after he's blown away by some kid
                        in his own platoon.

                        Maybe another Georgia boy
                        who's never been so far from home

                        so scared he shoots at anything
                        moving in shadows.

                        The letter feels light
                        for my cousin's voice.

                        He speaks of sheer petals rising
                        out of muddy fields

                        spreading before the sun.
                        Of a copper heron in shallow water

                        who dips his black-tipped beak
                        to spear his prey. 


                        by Contributing Poet  Chella Courington   Copyright © 2015 
                        ​VWP 2015     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com 

​​                        Bio:  Chella Courington  is a poet, fiction writer and educator.
                        She’s the author of four chapbooks of poetry:  Southern Girl Gone Wrong, Girls & Women, 
                        Paper Covers Rock and Flying South (A Kind of Hurricane Press)
                        along with three flash fiction chapbooks:  
                        Love Letter to Biology 250, Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana and Girls & Women.
                        Her poetry and stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals 
                        including SmokeLong, Pirene’s Fountain, The Collagist, Gargoyle and Fourteen Hills.
                        She lives in Santa Barbara, CA, with another writer and two cats
                        and teaches at Santa Barbara City College. ​