I didn’t really want to send flowers, anyway.
Better to send the blue heron I was watching tonight
as it waded the river. Better to send its ungainly flight,
how it rose liltingly above the cliffs then disappeared.
Better to send the feeling that rose in me when,
like a visual echo, the great bird returned, this time
directly above me, its wings a dark silhouette in the pinking sky.
As it is, I send the silence after, silence the way the water
is silent when it has no shore to kiss. As it is, I send
silence, silent the way the lilies I thought to send
would have opened in your room, silent as their fragrance.