"The full moon climbs the slope, the old crow laughs, at midnight they brew wine and pour it at the river's edge.
The old crow brings a red bridal veil, a paper sedan, a tattered fishing net, eighteen poles stuck at the whirlpool's entrance.
Red bowls filled with rouge, the song of lament sung backwards—
The River Lord lifts the red silk, the fish carry the sedan, the bride gasps underwater..."
On the dirt road, a grey-haired Shaman with disheveled hair draped over his shoulders wears a raincoat, turns a rattle drum, singing and dancing, muttering, the brown dried cattail grass on his raincoat layers upon layers, rising and falling like feathers, as if the crow with spread wings from his words.
Late May, the sun blazes fiercely, scorching the land into yellow sand, brilliant orange-yellow.
A twelve or thirteen-year-old girl sweats on her forehead, dons new clothes, sits in a newly woven bamboo sedan, covered with a fishy-smelling fishing net.
