Last Saturday (September 20, 2008), I went canoeing down the Black Creek River in Mississippi. All day long, there were these two egrets in front of us. They rested in trees along the bank, until we almost caught up to them, and then they would fly a few yards downstream, to wait for us to come up. No matter how swiftly or slowly we paddled, they were always there, leading us. We stopped for an hour to eat and swim, and when we got started again, they got back to guiding us. It was so quiet, you could hear the fluttering of their wings. It was poignantly unreal, like a Chinese or Japanese poem, painting, or film.
Back home, I composed a mediocre English and (with Yuka’s help) a pretty good Japanese haiku.
Autumn, the river,
Egrets constantly guiding,
Leading us downstream
夏過ぎて
白鷺共に
川下リ
(Natsu sugite
Shirasagi tomo ni
Kawa kudari)
Yellow Crane in the Rain 
Beautiful–I did not know birds would act this way…almost like a dream
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It was like a dream.
Apparently, it made such an impression on me that I can’t stop posting about it (I forgot I’d posted it before). Also, I used the experience in my novel, of which more later.
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