Local Birds
Arrivals from the west,
a party of egrets strapped in white,
come to perch professionally in one perfect row
on the cold railings of the local canal.
They are early today, and the tide is still up.
Even the old men with their Tai-chi music
are not here yet.
So they check their feathers and rehearse their speeches.
On the opposite bank, a gang of crows
in gleaming black jackets and hungry looks,
gather with their loudhailer cries
eager to hurl vulgarities at the egrets,
intent on usurping their authority.
The egrets pretend not to hear;
they know with experience,
their beaks are no less sharp.
It was hard to tell in the early light,
with the tide not fully receded,
but already the guppies are herding
into separate shallow pools.
You can almost swear,
every single one has a ticket and a pencil,
ready to decide
which side to die for.
santa clara review summer '03
***
listening to: stereophonics - maybe tomorrow
reading: george mackay brown - wreck of the archangel
__
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7 comments:
I like this one better than the one you posted on Livejournal, only because I was thinking of things and recent happenings related to lose-lose situations.
hmmm... sounding INteresting, elaborate plez? wat loselose situations? :)
Like choosing which boss to work for -- one will whip your back but you get priority on everything and people will hate you, if you mess up you are on your own, if you succeed, he takes all the credit; the other one is suspected of being mentally unstable and weak, and if you work for him, people will possibly be able see how smart you are independently, but if he go down, which is likely, you go down with him. That's in summary the gist of it.
i c wat u mean. believe it or not, i went through both kinds, and i will always choose the backwhipper/stronger one. if you think of it by expanding the pic, the credit for whatever you do, will always be owned by someone else further up the line. since that is the case, i prefer the priority. 'sides, there are always ways to outshine such a person. i.e. documentation, "keeping one stroke back" and very important, ccing emails. :)
but i got sick of playing the game after a while. haha.
I usually end up being a free agent at work after a while - it has happened to me in all my jobs.
The bosses leave me alone to do my own things.
I think I scare people at work.
~~~~
The other day, I saw the most amazing thing. A small little swallow, repeatedly attacking a big crow. The crow was flying away, across the sky, and the swallow pursued it for quite some time, repeatedly diving at it - actual physical contact mid-air.
hey gilbert,
a free agent lawyer somehow scares me too. hahaahaha. :)
birds are weird. does it inspire u to write something?
I think that the crow must have tried to eat the swallow's young or something like that.
No lah, don't know how I could turn that into a poem.
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