I would not even call it patience. She walks knee-deep in the still water, parallel to the shoreline. The tide rests in that still place between coming and going. One spindle leg after another, almost gliding, the heron embodies stillness, contentment, peacefulness, satisfaction. It would be easy to believe that she wants for nothing, and walks the shallows for no purpose aside from languid contemplation. And then she sees a fish.