Musings #24

A PARTING GIFT

I believe origami arrives/when we need it most.

Bob Hicok

As if the rest were not enough,

they present

a bronze statue of a woman

on tiptoe, offering up

a flock of delicate paper cranes.

They say this reminds them of me.

I think of the girl in Hiroshima –

her body bomb-burned,

dying before she could fold

a thousand of these wide-winged creatures.

Origami

for the sake of peace in all the world.

They say they do not know

the crane’s symbolism –

but at some level

deep

they surely sense

the crane means faithful

even in farewell,

and I begin to hope

that nothing that really matters

is ever really lost.