Excerpt from Catalogue d’oiseaux

by Aaron Tucker

This all reminds me of a time before you, though I was looking
     for you without knowing &
taking the ferry to Vancouver Island, Tsawwassen to Duke Point,
     I was alone
at the front of the boat, wind pushing me side to side, coastal
     mountains snowcapped
even in late–May, the ocean opening up, different than the island
     chains to Swartz Bay my usual
trip, but this was into open water, the Vancouver cityscape distant
     & foggy pulling away, & in
front, as I looked forward: a double horizon, two straight lines light
     brown, then a tier of deep
green–blue, growing larger as we approached
brackish & silty, the Fraser River opened, stirred sediments from its
     beds
& pushed them into the ocean, the water tinged with the dust of
     interior land
of smaller natal rivers of salmon spawning, kicking dirt around their fry
the drag of a rock rounding with the current downstream, outward to estuaries
those liminal spaces between ocean & land, fast flowing but mixed,
     inbetween
I can see that water & where it has come from, & just beyond it,
     abruptly indigo
pure salt water begins, & the ferry approaches this border, & I
     move between views
until we slide over, & I am straddling that division, can see the
     snake of mud, alluvium
then the clear dark crests of ocean waves, capped like mountains, &
     I am into open water facing
forward, & that boundary recedes, & there is a clarity, a change,
     even if unarticulated
I think of this now & I think of the end of our trip together to the
     west coast, after my parents
past Kamloops & The Double Hook, down Highway 5, through the
     mountains
past Hope, & the cool of altitude, our ears popping with open jaws,
     past skinny pines
back down into fenced field land, those flat stretches that spill out
     like a delta into Vancouver we
move towards oceanedge, silty & searching for expanse &
     uninterrupted horizon
to watch gulls’ wings arch against the sky, flap off in search of other
     land, away in silhouette we
stop at the coast, at the beach along the seawall, curled down from
     Stanley Park
barges pulling across the water, hulk beyond those gulls, strange
     sediments compiling
we walk along the shore, dodging driftwood, examining perfectly
     rounded rocks
we listen to the waves’ metronome mark, receding with low tide,
     revealing dark sand
& you, that perfect tipping point, where the tide begins to come
     back in, that exact second where
the waves reverse & the water comes forward, washes, brings itself
     ashore by inches we sit as
joggers pass us, & arms around each other, we let the world rhythm,
     cycle, dawn are quiet &
together, let the moon reel out, disappear in crescents, then regrow
     round
let springs, summers, winters pass us, the seasons bringing migratory
     patterns back, forth return,
loop, merge & evolve, you, that precise word in that specific
     moment, everything
& when we do decide to move, we walk towards Pacific Yews,
     Western hemlock Sitka spruce,
red alder, we are magnetized towards the park, Cascara, Hollow
     Tree & to that gathering of
taller, skinner trunks, like long slender fingers reaching
the root palms buried in the earth, wrists through the magma, from
     earth’s core
we see only what is above, imagine the below surface, & rise, follow
     tendrils
break into the air, rise, trunk then limbsplit, crest with those large
     bulbing nests
the great blue herons live in, a full colony that stretches a block,
     dense with their sounds their
building, and renesting, how they gather from the sky, with soaring
     horizon spans they pull drops
from ocean water, from the clouds, pulling the white edges
with their long beaks, in full flight, pluck nightstars, blot
     streetlights, circle the moon on the
ground, they will stand motionless, then spike into the water, pull
     their prey
I’ve watched one on the shore of Cadboro Bay in Victoria, the two
     of us, bird & watcher
as the dusk dropped, and the figure blended into the water, then
     into the dark, gone
I think about that bird as I hold your hand & listen to them live,
     stilt legs, wave neck compact
when stationary, even hunched, almost whitegold feathers, slight maize
we imagine them in their nests like that, regal & proud, watching
     sunsets blaze the Pacific we
imagine them expanding their space, negotiating the trees with
     their nestled eggshells mating
loving in their ways, we are sharing these thoughts, my arm around
     your waist when the trees
shudder, erupt, & the nests empty at once, the tree tops shimmering
     alive & each heron unfurls
into the evening, their distinct long–winged motions powerful
flock, they all join together & push towards the shore,
     cloudcoloured, simultaneous
you, aviary, light boned & windtaken, celebrate as they wave to us,
     turn to me
& we follow them, track them against the skyshapes in our intimate
     ways