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| Tonight, one such hunter is stalking as I approach the pool's northwest rim. Its presence evokes my smile, as at an absurdly fulfilled expectation, as though a quaint appointment's been kept; although almost certainly it's not the same bird each evening in this sheltered corner. Aware yet immersed in work, its solitude an integrity, the egret lets me watch. The slow movements metamorphose to choreography, a spooky dance of grace and stealth, the head undulating as the pillowy white body floats on scissoring, stalky legs. Drenched in smoky twilight, the bird scans the darkening water, murkier for the algae, tall grasses and sporadic trees,  | alternating its eyes to zoom in on the vital food. The neck unsnakes, coils back; the beak clamps and reclamps on the slivery, flapping, silver fish. "Beauty." The word captions the scene, and I cannot rub it out, creature of words that I am; and, creature of words, I hear myself thinking words once thought by Keats, his aphoristic phrase regarding "beauty" that critics insist is so ambiguous. Becoming immersed in the landscape, and as though the act of witness had earned me authority, I argue silently, convincing myself there exists no ambiguity in such life-and-death beauty, the lithe white egret alive only by the grace of the fluty silver fish, eaten against its writhing will. ***  | |||
