Water Buffalo

I want to be like a

Water buffalo

Soaking for hours

Happy to be wet

Eyes kinder and more

Knowing

Than mine.

I want to walk slowly

Graze with keen

Mindfulness

Thoughtfully look over

My shoulder

For my calf.

I want to deliberate

Like a water buffalo

Carefully and with some

other knowing
I cannot fathom.

Mind on some
greater good

Not
survival.

"And when Nath Nong, who has to live

in Massachusetts now, saw a picture

of green Cambodian fields she said,

name krebey English? I told her,

Water buffalo.

She said, Very, very

good animal.

She put her finger

on the picture of the water buffalo

and spoke its Khmer name once more."

- Julie Alger

"Water buffalo, I wonder how

many more summers have I to

look at you again?"

- Toshie Nohara