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.