Hope and Love by Jane Hirshfield

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one-
not knowing even
that was what he did-
in the blowing
sounds in he dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

~ from The Lives of the Heart (Harper Perrenial, 1997)