Photo from Wikimedia Commons

A pair of ducks flapping wings in unison
fly over the muddy field.  Zhang digs
furrows and Mei follows, dropping seeds.
Zhang raises his eyes, shades them with his hand.
“Yuan-yang!” he cries.  Mei looks up and, for
a moment, it’s their wedding day again.
 
Long ago, the ducks signified brotherly love.
It’s not true that symbols can never change.
The Shijing masters shifted the love of
brothers to that between a constant man
and his faithful wife.  Yet symbols also
cannot change.  Brother or spouse, Yuan-yang
signifies loyalty, fidelity, an
intimacy exclusive as the Emperor’s
bedchamber in the Palace of Renshou.
 
These ducks, people fondly say, mate for life.
His raiment is an extravagant rainbow
of orange, purple, green, and black feathers.
His beak is delicate, his eyes jet-black.
She is as big as he, but demurely dressed
in ash-gray with white speckles on her
modest breast.  They are so well-matched, to see
them swimming side-by-side is a delight.
To catch a rare sight of the pair in flight
is warranted to bring good luck.
 
An old peasant in Liangzhou, one who had
long watched Yuan-yang come and go, told me the
truth. “Just one summer,” he whispered for fear
his wife might hear. “New mates every Fall.”
 
Symbols soar above our muddy, bloody fields.
Though our feet are firmly fixed in the dirt,
it’s not wrong, from time to time, to look up.