Birds

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This is the fourth time for me to visit Koya pond

（昆陽池）, in Itami city in Hyogo prefecture.

嘴を羽にうずk 嘴を羽に埋めて眠りたる鴨の群にも雪ふりきたり眠りいる鴨の群にも雪ふりきたり

There is snow falling
in canards' wings and feathering
when they are sleeping
with their nibs into their own wings

When I came here for the first time, there was snow fall, and a flock
of gulls, a sort of gull called yuri-kamome in Japanese, soared up into the gray sky all together suddenly.
The white plumage with faint gray parts mingling with snow flakes gave me a lasting impression.

This pond which was made under leadership of preast Gyoki over1,200 years ago,is a famous stopover for migratory birds now.

I have visited in cold season and saw various birds, gulls, cormorants, many sorts of ducks and geese, swans and so on here.
In spring, swans deposit their eggs and it is said that people can see some swans swim with their chicks in early summer.

the islands in the pond

Koya-pond has artistic islands in the midst of it. The shape, looks like Japanese archipelagos, is observed like the photo(by Wikipedia) shows from air plane which has got departure from Osaka International Airport(Itami Airport) that is located near the pond.

In dairy life I enjoy to see the birds which come to visit my yard.
A lot of bush near my residence gradually have decreased because of becoming cut-over, therefore the birds need to search for their food in the residential area.

I found this You tube,"El Cant des Ocells"「鳥の歌」 by Pablo Casals.
The plaintive and delicate melody by a cellist makes me think of birds' difficult and fragile lives.

Their lives are not easy.

The old man , in "The Old man and the Sea", recognises a bird came to be close to his vessel long time after when the shore became to be unseen.
He talks to the bird which teetered on a line for fishing, having gripped it with his feet without examining it well,
"It's steady.""It's too steady. You shouldn't be that tired after a windless night," said he.


The old man's mind keeps tense throughout the story like the fishing line which is an unwashed one in daylight and a phosphorescent one at night.

It was the moment when he talked to the bird was the moment when his mind winded down unusually in the story.

murmur of a river

murmur of a river

with

Happy New Year

暮れ近き小川の呟き聞きとめて急かるるこころ抱（いだ）き佇む

I alerted and stood still

with a mind tending to bustle

as I happened to listen to

murmur of a stream of the river

I composed this one just after I started to learn how to do. I was in late 30Th and it was necessary for me to share almost all of my time for family of seven. So, the moment for thinking about tanka was quite precious for me.

At that time I was passing along this river by bicycle, and today I came here alone on foot.
Appreciating to have enough time for myself, I looked at a row of cherry trees along the river.
These trees were planted by volunteers about ten years ago by the river Akishino, which will remind you of family name of Prince and Princess as well as a name of a temple.

Cherry trees without flowers nor leaves let their bark shine flashing back sun rays of January, and now that I look closer I saw many tiny blossom buds.

Before, I found a wooden plate hung in one of the trees with a tanka that read, the life of Harry Belafonte who is singing an old Japanese song, "sakura", and that of mine are valuable, sorrowful in a same way and both are irreplaceable.

(ただ一度生まれ来しなり「さくらさくら」歌うベラフォンテも我も悲しき)
　島田修二

What a shame that I can't recognise in which tree it was hung.


The stream of the river murmured.
" I have a flow, and so does time. Go slowly along the flow."


On my way home I saw trees rising up beneath the sky. And, New Year sky goes on forever above them.