The Sign

I.

Someone has put up a sign at the sluice gate saying the path may flood at high tide, which the path has been doing since before the council had a font to print signs in.

I appreciate the sign anyway. It is nice to be warned about a thing so thoroughly established it has stopped being news and become, instead, weather.

II.

The heron is back, standing exactly where the sign would tell you not to stand, if the sign were for herons, which it is not, because the council, to its credit, has never once mistaken a heron for its constituency.

I watch it not read the sign for a while. This is the best part of my week and I am not proud of that and I am not going to pretend otherwise either.

III.

A jogger goes past and asks if the path floods a lot. I say yes. He says thanks and keeps jogging toward it anyway, which I respect more than I can easily explain. Some people read the sign. Some people are the sign. The heron is neither. The heron is just standing there being right about the tide in a way none of us have found a way to print and post.