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Another Andromache
by Dan Bosworth
A solitary crane
wading the rushes
of Daecheon Creek
in the early morning,
ghostly White,
against the rust and golden brown,
like the first veil of snow
on autumn leaves.
Muddied, urban watercourse
way - the Tao,
flows by,
swirls in and out of memory,
churns up thought fragments
from the riverbed.
This crane has been born
and reborn from crushed minerals
to stand beneath the autumn moon
on rice paper,
pale luminescence in its feathers.
It has spread its wings
in gold and iron,
menuki on sword-hilts,
rising from the sashes
of ronin, wave-drifters,
flying on rayskin.
In white jade and mother-of-pearl inlays
it has adorned the entranceways
of dim Chinese diners,
shrouded in plastic greenery,
petroleum tendrils reaching out
for the Egg Foo Yung.
The creek flows down from mountains
past makeshift vegetable gardens,
ski-poles prop up peppers
on terraces made of tire treads.
It eddies around
willow shoots
and ripples over streambeds
of Bic lighters, kimchi potsherds,
and bottle caps.
In the summer swelter
children splash, knee-deep,
in the murky waters.
Workmen wash their feet here
at noontime
and discard their wrappings,
trappings of a throw-away world.
With slow inevitability
it trickles down to meet the Nakdong River,
and then the sea,
maybe ten miles hence.
Returning, my eye is caught
by another bright image,
plastic gallon jug,
White,
like dentist's offices.
The crane,
moonlight in its wings,
alpine starlight distilled in its black eyes,
picks its way past.
Delicate legs
like mantis claws,
pierce the surface with a surgeon's precision,
not a ripple.
Takes no notice.
Looking for minnows.
- D.B.
October 22 , 2005
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