Holland Heron Poem by C Richard Miles

In Holland, from the speeding train, I suddenly spot you:
Waiting, motionless, eyes fixed on flat, dull ditchwater
Ignoring the windmill sails turning, for the unspoilt view
Of sticklebacks swimming, unaware of future slaughter
From the gunmetal shadow, camouflaged in the dull sky,
Just another flat, level cloud in the flat, level landscape.
As the streamlined, sleek silver-grey express glides by,
You leap and pierce; your silent-scream victim can’t escape.
Minutes later, another heron hopes, in self-same perched pose
To repeat your feathered feat of feasting on prime perch dishes.
Behind, a tulip backdrop, red-coated dragoons in rows
Look on to judge and score his dive on darting, finny fishes.
Dike after dike, canal after canal, pass in a Dutch dash.
Hundreds of hungry herons, each a statue, gaunt and grey
Ghosts in silhouette against the flat-blue, matt-blue, splash
And catch untallied trout, uncountable carp, scaly prey.
Arch-angler, rodless, lineless, hookless, wormless, you catch.
Piscatorial perfectionist, you have no want for wriggling bait.
Glum, gumbooted fishermen give up: they cannot hope to match
Your skill. Under unfurled umbrellas they dumbly doze and wait.
Satisfied, fish-filled, you take flight, rivalling the roaring plane
As it ascends from Schipol, with stoned tourists homeward bound.
A grey garbage sack of a bird, floating, soaring over my train,
You cast a grey, flat, fleeting shadow on the flat, grassy ground.
Cud-chewing cattle in square, chessboard fields look on, grazing
As I draw near my destination: unsleeping, addled Amsterdam.
Unvisionary visitors are satisfied with laughing, loafing, lazing
Unheeding hero-heron sentinels who guard each dike and dam.