grasses sway, the egret stalks, & even tree roots seem to crawl.
Mangrove Movement [Haiku]
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
One foot in the river. One foot on the shore. Both feet sunk in the mud. The fisherman casts his net with perfect flick and spin, muck extruding between toes. The sling is the one quick part of the movement: quick, but unrushed. The net is hauled back, slowly and methodically, pressing out excess water while offering no escape route. How many casts per day? As many as are necessary. There are other fishers, out on languidly rocking boats, casting out in the river. And in rivers everywhere: in the Mekong, the Amazon, the Euphrates, and the Mississippi Delta. Everywhere, they are casting.

Tagore looms,
wind-swept & erudite,
in mind & presence.

drifting downstream,
the prow points our way
to open sea.

at mangrove’s edge:
a croc, mouth agape.
lazy hunter?

When setting sunlight warms
silvery tree trunks &
mangrove reeds,
and they alternate with
deep shadows,
I finally understand
the tiger’s camouflage.

clouds lift
to reveal jade hills:
Tah-Dahhhh!