No matter the hour of night or day, she's there–always at one shaded bank of the pond or the other. Always alone. Once, it almost frightened me– she was in the center, not a ripple on the lake, not her mate, nor another wading bird in sight– so regal and pure, and unharmed, so unafraid–it seemed of solitude, so sure.

Imagine, desire gone, no longer essential. Not touch, perhaps one luxury– memory–to sustain her.

And then as night falls so brilliant and still in that darkness, a splash of white.