Arching graceful necks they open great green beaks and join their voices in a wild duet. Preening and strutting on a silken stage the cranes are not dismayed that painted feathers fade.
Immortals grow more ravishing with age.
Contentedly they wade the swirling ink of their appointed pool where spawning minnows school and poets are prohibited to drink. As the sun sets on snow peaks in the West snow cranes contemplate the chirps which emanate from the lone egg sequestered in their nest. Over that egg a four-toed foot is curled as though a Taoist sage in a thatched hermitage slowly revolves the ovum of the world. Timothy Murphy Timothy Murphy. Originally printed in The Hudson Review .