The Other Boy and the Heron
Down along the creek
I remember something
Her, the heron hurried away
When first I breeched that last Sunday”
—from “CR∑∑KS” by Bon Iver
It was July of 2016, the year my youngest brother left for college. My middle brother and I were leaving Onteora Scout Reservation, the camp in the Catskills that had been our summer home for more than a decade. When we left, we knew it would likely be the last time we would dive from the docks into Orchard Lake, stoke the longhouse fire, pick blueberries from the patch behind the campsite we had called our own since we were tweens. As we drove through late afternoon light that tawnied the cattails and reeds lining Sprague Creek, a great blue heron flew across the road, maybe 10 feet in front of the windshield of our beloved and timeworn silver 2000 Dodge Caravan.
It was the end of Labor Day in 2012, my last as a. I stared, wondering what had brought her so far from her marsh, then turned to find a fellow worker and share this strange and beautiful happening. When I looked back, she was nowhere to be seen.
