Poem: White Feathers
Jan. 26th, 2016 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiori_makibaby shiori_makiba
Word Count: 964 words in 133 lines.
Inspired by a prompt from![[personal profile]](https://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redsixwing for January Thank Muse It's Friday.
“White Feathers”
Once there was man named Yasuo.
His name meant gentle man
and all agreed it was true name.
For Yasuo was a kind soul.
Perhaps too kind said some,
for these were dangerous times.
But Yasuo only said,
it is always dangerous times.
Besides a poor man like himself
has no riches with which to give.
He can only give
the gift of kindness.
Then one day,
while Yasuo was tending to his little paddy,
something crashed to ground with a pained cry.
Always quick to help those in need,
Yasuo quickly ran over and discovered the something
was a little crane with beautiful white feathers.
The reason for the bird's distress was soon apparent.
A hunter's arrow had pierced one of its wings.
'It would be a shame,' he thought,
'for such a beautiful bird to die.'
And set to help the crane.
The crane looked at him with fear
but Yasuo was patient as well as kind.
Eventually the bird allowed him to approach it.
Carefully he picked it up and returned to his hut.
Removing an arrow from a limb was not an easy task
but Yasuo had experience with such matters.
After all, accidents happened when hunting
and most of the village was too poor
to sent for a doctor.
They made do with their fellow villagers' knowledge
of healing and herbs.
The arrow safely removed, the wound cleaned,
and wrapped with a healing poultice applied,
Yasuo and his feathery house-guest settled in.
The crane was young and otherwise healthy
so it did not take it long to recover.
The morning it was ready,
Yasuo took it to the edge of the woods.
“Be careful to avoid hunters,” he said.
The crane bobbed its head as if to acknowledge his warning.
It lifted up into the air, circled Yasuo three times before
departing with a cry of thanks.
The sign of its stay was a single white feather
lying at Yasuo's feet.
Which he tucked into his kimono.
It was a simple gift but Yasuo was a simple man.
And besides, cranes were lucky birds.
Yasuo went his fields and did his work as usual.
But when he returned home, he was greeted with a most unusual sight.
A woman waiting patiently by the door.
She was a stranger, a most unusual sight.
His village, being small and unimportant,
seldom saw visitors.
Especially a beautiful stranger, clad in a lovely new kimono
emblazoned with red-throated cranes.
“Welcome home,” said the stranger. “I am your wife.”
“My wife?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“It is only proper as I have stayed so many nights in your house.”
This surprised Yasuo
as the only living thing that had stayed with him
had been the crane.
She couldn't be the crane
could she?
But there were stories, many stories,
of animals taking human form.
Some of them became wives or husbands
to the humans that helped them.
It was very tempting.
She was very pretty and it got lonely out here,
on the edge of the village.
He felt it was only fair to warn her.
“I am very poor. I don't know if I can support a wife.”
She smile and held up a sack.
“Don't worry, I have plenty of rice.”
It was a small sack but the stories spoke of much food coming from small vessels.
“We don't know each other.”
She smiled.
“I already know of your kindness. We can learn the rest.”
Then she ducked inside and started making dinner.
Yasuo followed.
He ignored the little voice that tried to remind him that
these stories didn't often end happily.
Their lives together were often happy.
His wife, who took the name Mai,
proved to be as lovely in the heart as she was in body.
They had a child – a girl named Yasuko.
Their farm did well most years and when it didn't
Mai's little magic rice sack ensured they didn't starve.
Being the kind souls that they were,
they made sure their neighbors didn't starve either.
As children did, Yasuko grew up.
And fell in love with the
eldest son of a wealthy merchant.
A young man whose bride was
expected to bring a good dowry.
Now the lad's father was not a greedy sort.
He knew Yasuko's family was poor
and felt she was a good match for his son regardless.
But custom was custom.
“Build me a weaving room,” said Mai.
Puzzled and knowing after so many years
not to question his wife's wisdom, Yasuo did so.
Before she entered the room though,
she warned him quite sternly,
“You must promise never to peek inside.”
Yasuo gave his promise.
It was not the first such promise.
Mai was still a crane and
had to assume her natural form at least some of the time.
Especially if she was going to work powerful magic.
Seven days later, Mai emerged from the room.
She was very thin but holding the most beautiful cloth he had ever seen.
“Take this cloth to the marketplace. It will sell for a high price.”
She was right.
The beautiful cloth sold for many coins.
More than enough for Yasuko's dowry.
Happy, he turned home.
Yasuko married her young man and life went on.
Yasuo grew old and bent in body but still kind in heart.
Mai seemed untouched by time.
Until one winter's day, Mai announced to Yasuo,
“You are dying.”
This was not surprising. He was old.
“So I am.”
“Stay with me?”
“Always.”
The next day, Yasuko came by to see her parents.
But all she saw was a pair of white feathers lying on the ground
and two cranes flying off into the blue sky.
Notes:
Based loosely on the Japanese folktale, “Tsuru no Ongaeshi” or the Crane Returned the Favor.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-22 02:50 am (UTC)I expected the Bluebeard trope: that Yasuo would peek, and lose Mai. I'm very glad it wasn't that.
• laying at Yasuo's feet.
→ lying
• Especially beautiful stranger, clad in lovely new kimono
→ strangers ... kimonos
OR
→ a beautiful stranger ... a lovely
• She was very pretty and it get lonely out here,
→ it got
• on the edge of village.
→ of the village.
• It was small sack
→ a small sack
• these stories didn't often end happy.
→ happily.
• Before she entered the room through,
→ though
• she warned him quite sternly.
> delete the period, or change it to a comma
• It was not the first of such promises.
→ first such promise
• Until one winter's day, Mai announced to Yasuo.
> delete the period, or change it to a comma
• But all she saw of a pair of white feathers
→ all she saw was a
Do you want me to explain any of these?
Thanks for Feedback
Date: 2016-02-22 03:13 am (UTC)Also thought it might be interesting to see the hero keep his promise not to peek.
Got them fixed.
Mostly seemed to be typos resulting in the following the trend of misspelling certain words. And messing up the tense.
This one confuses me:
on the edge of village.
→ of the village.
>> strangers ... kimonos>>
Second option chosen because kimono is a Japanese word and they don't plural. Kimono is kimono whether it is one or many.
This is not meant as a criticism. It just bugs me when people pluralize Japanese words. Maybe it is my slow but steady attempt to learn the language but it sounds and looks weird to me when Japanese words are pluralized. And it jumps out and smacks me on the nose like typos and grammar goofs do you.
Re: Thanks for Feedback
Date: 2016-02-22 04:48 am (UTC)I missed this one before:
• was little crane
→ was a little crane
"Village" is a common noun like "crane", not a proper noun like "Tuckahoe" (a village in New York State); and it's a count noun, meaning that (1) you can pluralize it (one village, two villages), (2) you HAVE TO pluralize it if it refers to more than one (can't say "I've lived in three village"), and (3) that in the singular it almost always needs a determiner (a word that specifies which village you're referring to, or that you DON'T mean any particular one). So you can say
but you can't say (grammatically) "I found that on the edge of village." Does that make sense to you?
OK, I grok that. My thinking was that this word is familiar enough as a loan word in English to be pronounced as English and pluralized as English, and it usually is; but I won't try to press that here, since the singular works ("a kimono"), and of course you're the author.However, if it had to be plural in meaning, I would definitely oppose
• They were all wearing beautiful new kimono.
Why? Because this sentence is in English, not Japanese, and English requires a plural there. That sounds as bad to me as
• They were all wearing beautiful new sweater.
which I'd expect to get from someone whose language does not form plurals (whether not obligatorily or not at all) and who has not mastered English plurals.
Re: Thanks for Feedback
Date: 2016-02-22 05:24 am (UTC)I can usually figure out where I am made a mistake when the mistake once it is pointed out but sometimes my brain just goes "does not compute" unless someone explains exactly what I'm doing wrong.
Re: English plurals and Foreign Words
Fair enough.
I try to write the sentences that use loan words like kimono so they don't look weird to English readers OR the people familiar with the loan word's language but it can be a tricky balancing act Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.