at that moment he remembered who he was only he had forgotten his name

Far Along in the Story

The boy walked on with a flock of cranes

following him calling as they came

from the horizon behind him

sometimes he thought he could recognize

a voice in all that calling but he

could not hear what they were calling

and when he looked back he could not tell

one of them from another in their

rising and falling but he went on

trying to remember something in

their calls until he stumbled and came

to himself with the day before him

wide open and the stones of the path

lying still and each tree in its own leaves

the cranes were gone from the sky and at

that moment he remembered who he was

only he had forgotten his name

W.S. Merwin

Andô Hiroshige

Japanese (1797 - 1858)

FLYING CRANES