then sad,
watching the cormorant-fishing.
Note: The only cormorant I ever “knew” well lived in the East River and swam between East 80th Street down to the Queensborough Bridge. We would see him most mornings when we jogged. Usually, we continued running after sighting him (making meaningful repeated contact with any wildlife in New York City and feeling you’ve formed a connection is really precious), but sometimes we would pause a few minutes and watch him fish. He put on an astonishing show, diving deep and hauling up his catch to the surface. Once he seemed to be trying to ingest an eel whole, which worried us, but he was indomitable. I miss him. As far as I know, he was the only East River cormorant. They’re not supposed to be there.
Robert Haas (trans.), The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa, New York, The Ecco Press, 1994.
Kinks: Sitting By The Riverside (Link)
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