Saturday, August 8, 2009

Chasing the Moonset...























Sitting quietly in my boat before dawn, awaiting moonset, successive clouds of small black birds rise up from the island, cover the sky in wildly noisy cacophany, and then they are gone, and all is silent.


Surely they are very same birds I watched on another day at sunset. I watched them arrive -- from where? -- with the same uproarious symphony, and settle on that island. Noisy clouds settling in the greenery, and shaking the air for some time.


I like to let the wind blow me backwards. I like to watch the lakeweeds below my boat sway as I glide over. I like to see the waterbirds move with me yet maintain our distance.


And that black waterbird, diving fearlessly so close to my boat -- she glides around a reeded bend, only to peek back at me from time to time. At last, responding to her beckoning, I slowly move my boat. Ah! Proud mama! She is showing me her little one as they fuss with no fear of me, among the reeds.


Dawn’s golden rays flash silver the leaping fish.


Here? Lotus blooming among reeds? Ha! Fine feathers floating amid.


The round moon at sunrise melts like a lemon drop into the great blueness of sky.