A Crow in the Ouse

This morning down beside the Ouse
I watched, as in the silt and mud,
which shows in stretches ridged and grey
when gravity sucks tide away,
a crow taking his morning bath,
as tentative as any girl,
dipping in his lower half,
ruffling up his shivering quills,
daring himself to greater depth,
splashing the shimmering cold
to his skin, egged on to greater
daring and thrills,
by his friend on the path
and a crowd of gulls.
and when he was done
he just went his way,
and his friends stood about
with nothing to say.
And I walked on,
thinking I'd seen
an insignificant incident,
a fleeting moment of morning routine,
like my own by the river,
each day with the dog.
Yet I've never seen it happen before,
and might live to grow old
ere it happens again.
And our lives are like this,
though we seek profundity,
clarity through metaphor,
yet there's something to learn
from dull old simplicity,
witnessing things as they really are,
enjoying a thing for the sake of itself,
not always trying to understand more.