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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