Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PAPER CARP, by JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PAPER CARP, by                    
First Line: To-day they drink the wind, the paper carp
Last Line: And that of our wounded son. The gods are good.
Subject(s): Aging; Paper


TO-DAY they drink the wind, the paper carp,
With heads toward the wind's source,
As real carp swim—or so our elders tell—
Against the stream. So have these fish become
The symbol of the manhood of our race;
Strong to overcome all odds, battling 'gainst life's stream.
And to-day—as ev'ry fifth of May—those fortunate ones
Who have given men-children to their lords
Hang before their homes carp made of shimmering paper;
Red, silver, golden, green—the colours loved of Gods—
That men, seeing, these may know
Kwannon has blessed that home;
That out of her hundred-handed store it has pleased her
Mercy to bestow, that the name may not die out. ....
And to-day, at last, our home is blessed,
Though I am very old, long past the age
When women may give children to their lords,
And my lord is blind and grown feeble 'neath the burden of his years.
He cannot see the golden carp; our own before our door,
But ere I raised it to its staff
He took it in his hands and blessed it.
And now, as, filled with wind, it floats and flutters,
He hears the swish and smiles.
"This is to die content," he says.
For over ten years no carp has hung before our door,
No smile has lighted my dear lord's face or mine.
For our son, our only son, had done that
Which was unworthy of my lord's son.
Men called him coward; said he had trembled in the face of danger,
Had shrunk from the blare of Russian guns—
He did not deny; my lord turned him from our door,
For twenty years we have had no son. But now—
Now in his own blood is he redeemed.
Blood shed for the Emperor. No longer an officer,
But as the meanest of privates he sought service
And on the field sought danger—and found it.
He has come back a cripple, marred, face shot away;
No day without pain, nor can be to the end;
But our son once more.
So merrily sails the carp in the wind;
And happily beats my old heart, and my lord's;
And that of our wounded son. The Gods are good.





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