I Come Too Close

It knows when, the great white heron,
I come too close. Though I don't know what
it thinks I want. It would be nice
if it took my watching it
as simple praise. I do not want
the raw little racer it caught for lunch.
My diet calls for things that move
hardly at all. I would not touch
its chick, if it had one, or flash
a camera in its face. Agreed,
the space between us can't be crossed,
though when I try to narrow it
an inch or two, as now, I catch
something in the way it packs
its apparatus in a bag --
beak, legs and wings -- and flaps off squawking,
annoyed, it would seem, with little man.
Who runs himself around,
but can't get off the ground.
-- Roger Mitchell