"Citizens, come running! We can put it out! Bring your pots brimming. Bring your jars of water. These swift flames singe woodwork, our farmers’ tillers." It began far away and surged to the sky, advanced against these walls, the houses of boatmen. Flooded homes yielded to the paths of water-birds. Days before on the lake’s shore, they found a bird. A passer-by clamoured: "Children, watch out!" A grey crane trapped in the nets of the boatmen, who fish the lake and praise the city waters. "Children, where can I hide you under this sky? And what of the land? The green maize and tiller?" The hour was noon, but the bird’s brow, ploughed or tillered with glass, mirrored the stars and evening song-birds. The weathered goddess keening to the sky, weeping goddess throws a spear, propels it out against tidal winds. At the brink of water, we captured them with longboats, those fierce boatmen. The messengers have returned with our proud boatmen. They left the ships – the rudderless tiller – left the galleons empty on the water. Ashore, the wry wingspan of Blue Mockingbird beats out each knife-stab and sword-stroke: life snuffed out. They died blind, their grey eyes attending white skies. We raised our muzzles to the wind, to the ashen sky: we brandished muzzles high, the scent of boatmen wet on our jaws and mauls. "Why did you come out? It’s too late for a God to take the tiller." Out came the dancers feathered by hummingbird; a drummer beat the ebb and flow of water. "Corpses in the rushes! Death in the water! Ripe as corn. Corpses in the reeds. Ripe as sky." Beneath pale throats of magnificent frigatebirds, we sliced off the arms of drummers and boatmen; rolling heads were sunken treasure among the tillers: in a raucous dance, our rhythms were stamped out. "We live on water and weeds", cry the boatmen. "Under burgeoning skies, we grope the tiller. The long-tailed bird – its curse – will never die out."