its black neck, black eye fixed upon
that leaf, its lovely harplike shape.
A pause for thought, an act of attention,
then it picks up the leaf delicately,
neck curved like the leaf’s harplike shape.
The crane steps toward a pond
and dips in the leaf, twice, delicately,
then pushes the green slip under. It waits
now at the edge of the pond
to watch a ring of ripples stretch
from where the green slip went under, waits
patiently in this placid forest
while rings of silver ripples stretch
wide in gray January light—
then probes for the leaf, gift of the forest,
fishes it from the water, swallows it whole.
This pleasure, in thin January light, comes
from the fresh green of the washed leaf—
fished from water and swallowed whole—
by the red-capped crane amid pine trees.
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