Imagine, then. Oh, call it eighteen hundred years ago,
a very small and useless girlchild,
discarded into the Yangtze River.
Too young to have a name,
Too young know, even a single word.
And Kuan Yin weeps.
And as she sinks into the painful cold,
A warm white body bears her up,
A gentle white snout pushes her,
head up into the reeds and mud,
the river’s edge,
brings her three tiny fishes,
one by one, and lays them near her mouth,
that cannot eat.
And stays protecting close,
Into the welcoming dark.
She dies that night,
so very cold, but not alone.
And as she dies,
The only word she ever learns,
burns in her failing mind.
“Baiji.”

And, now.
An old man reads some news,
and stops and weeps.
And as the tears run down his face,
he  whispers.
“Goodbye forever to the Baiji.”

And Kuan Yin weeps.