Lillian the Heron of Okarito

Swimming in slime, my life is in dark waters, murky deep.

Home is sublime in Okarito Lagoon. I'll search for food to eat. 

Then, one chilly morning while at the lagoon’s shallow edge, 

I looked up for no reason and there she perched on a tree. 

On a thin twig, white-feathered, with a sharp bill. Hello 

Who are you? I asked, as my huge eel head broke the water.

She looks down at me, Lillian the Heron, call me lily. 

Never shy, I reply, call me Tuna the Eel.

The more I moved below her, the more beautiful she became.

Then she stretched that long beautiful, white-feathered neck,

like an Egret shooting star, whistling across my lagoon home.

We talked; for time means nothing to this eel monster.

She told me how lonely she was which I found hard to believe, 

her pale feathers move in the faintest breeze, like a whisper. 

I consoled her anguish, don’t be sad little Heron. 

My beating eel-heart ached with love for this strange creature 

of land and air. That day went, that week, month, then a year.

We grew closer but we would never be together. 

I am an ugly, slimy eel. Lillian is this beautiful white Heron.

She’s like the full moon, casting silver across my dark lagoon. 

No place for me on a thin twig. Then one day Lily took flight— 

free. Now she’s gone. I searched in vain for my Kotuku love.    

If only Lillian, the Heron would come back one day. But I believe 

She's with her own kind now. I miss her terribly. Now,  

depressed and heartbroken, I sank into cold slime and died,

floating, forgotten, sinking down deep, into a lithium lagoon’s bottom.

There lay the lonesome Tuna, who once loved Lillian the white Heron. 

A misty rainbow drifts over my Okarito lagoon heaven—then it’s gone.