Cormorant on the Charles

On a walk by the river my advisor spots a cormorant. “Children imitating cormorants / are even more wonderful / than cormorants,” he quotes to me, a haiku by Issa.

He means it in reference to my research, I think—on representation and depiction through imperfect channels, channels like the lumbering frames of our bodies.

But by the river that afternoon I imagine him meaning instead that I am the child, and he the cormorant. Because is it not even more wonderful to be a young researcher, years from the job market, perplexed and anxious, yes, but blessed with time and the freedom to fill it—not to have wings yet, but to flap your arms anyway?