The Crane Ballerina
Perching on the mists of dawn
Above the lake in early moon
You lunge at will from branch to earth
In scything swoops of deliberate path
Through floating haze a flash of beak
Turning head with keen intent to seek
Slicing like a honed rapier
In the slender arm of a young squire
Then an eye and what a piercing eye
Twisting like an opal in a sparkling sky
Descending to those deadly pointed shears
Ready to stab, cut and shake with fear
I am a carp pulsing undercurrents flow
Sleek and golden sunrise thrusting down below
The duel commences eye to eye
From the first stare I know that I will die
The early mists disperse and fixed are we
In tormented struggle to live and eat
I in the murky waters deep
You waiting in the trees awake or asleep?
Then dancing flight from oak to ash
Your lithesome body's black white lash
Whips out across the rippling pond
And I in sudden dives sink down beyond
As morning bends time toward mid-day
There still you wait, not flown away
Hungry, threatening, stretching wings
Gasping for air in the heat, carp surface flings
Afternoon winds and on you prance
From tree to tree, from branch to branch
My life in danger your snatching claw
In vicious need my scaly flesh to tear
In dusk's dark shadows still you hover
And I beneath the lily's leaves take cover
Then as the silky moon comes out to scream
I'm mesmerized by silver beams
Skywards suddenly I leap
As from your perch you slyly creep
Snap and the thighs of your beak grasp
This thrashing carp in a naked clasp
Shaken, beaten in a dire convulsing smile
I flap, quivering in your gulping guile
Nature's awesome pattern shoves
And man falls upwards into woman's love
Richard Field
April 2004
