otsukisama

As light as the sky to fly it in, a late autumn filigree tweezered from the hues of childhood.

Trees lose leaves, descent absorbed in the hush of the evening fall. Above cicada-legged helicopter blades birr, swans from Russia complete the last circuit of the Indie Trans-migration. Call and response, land precisely where their brethen paddle and forage, water weeds draped on beaks. Mud-streaked snails slide into the pond's belly, a dank shawl around them, a cloak to obscure them. Ducks and fowl vee away across the water, then flurry back to gawk. Swans nicker and spread their wings and ruffle feathers, shaking out the futon and laying it on the surface of the pond. Welcome home. Lie down, lie down. Rest your weary head.

The moon, fingers splayed on the tops of hills, elbows bent, spring-rockets clear into the sky. Is it safe for birds to travel on such a night? Cats patrol. Lightfooted and stumpy-tailed, one steps out, sniffs around, circles, appetite whet. One waits by a ricefield, peers into a crevice, listening to a frog song, the scuffle of a mouse.

A swan stays for Spring and Summer, its feathers grey with the film of the lake. Its mate is lost, its heart is broken, its wings no longer take it to the sky. Is solitude sought, or wrought upon it? Maybe it likes sushi more than borscht, has tired of Russian rhetoric, circles the pond and disseminates with the ducks, who never leave home. Or Does it yearn for kin and kindred for seven months of the year and is elated tonight?

A stone lies in a runlet, interrupting the flow. Water laps and wears it smooth until it is silt or soil, or a stone with a different name. Motifs are traced and ridges noted. Curvature transgresses the grooves of striation. Hurdles are crafted, a challenge to clear, yet ways are found over and around them, through them, without too much exertion. Often. Not with abundance, but with enough regularity to know that some patterns run counter to the grain.