Small Black Ducks With Orange Beaks

small black ducks with orange beaks
paddle up and downstream before me
white tail feathers under
seen only when flicking their rear ends
doing a bent-neck chuck berry in the stream of
milky mossy soft green Han waters
waters given up sparkling clean ambition
on its slow winding trickle to the Taiwan Strait
the inevitible pass through the last dry boulders
wide into an estuary of oily vessels
along the shallow silty shores across from mainland China
near grasslands and wastelands of migrating birds
vast lands and last lands of island flight

now let me look upstream
towards white water splashing past the taoist temple
past the morning market at the end of the river road
up into the mountains passed statues and golf course
up passed invisible carniverous gnats
passed naughty monkeys ganging up on hikers
passed beetlenut palms and evergreen trees
cooler and drier through ceder forests
and moister and denser through mossed rocks abd ferns
under the canopy of shadow and shade
the birth of Han is clean and clear there
splashing tiny trickles o'er rocks and pebbles
stoop to it and take a cool sip

2-27-13