Tom Snyder: Collected Poems

Indianola, WA vs. Paris, France
—for Karen Stern

Your postcard proclaimed statues
on every corner—many
with wings! Over there…
where immortality is perched.

Birdlife of a different culture, I sniffed.

But yesterday, when the tide went minus,
and combing Indianola’s long flats
for a free lunch—moon snails
and cockles—I realized
even a goddess must suffer comparisons.

Here! A great blue heron standing wholeheartedly still.