Classic Poem

The man from Alumpil—where in the morning an otter seizes its prey
of a scabbard fish, its leap scattering the bright red kurali vine
through the cool reservoir, and must then fight off a hungry
crocodile for whom a snake is no more than a shrimp and finally
darts away—it seems that the man would not give up his struggle
and so among the mass of the Kocars gathered together and thirsting for victory,
he would devastate the battlefield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . while
spears bristle on his friend's chest like spokes on a wheel's hub
and upon the thick sand women with soft arms who had been playing
with dolls on their verandah now care for him, that man—before
his friend's life ends—is filled with fury and puts upon his own head
the garland twined of tumpai flowers
with long green leaves, as the bees go buzzing above its fragrance!