What is rare cannot be seen
without effort. Cannot be heard
or touched without regret. Because
it is the nearly lost, the nearly gone.
In some ways it is like the shark
that stays where the water is darkest
and preys upon what it alone can see.
This is the way with the rare.
A white deer. A white-headed crow.
One a symbol of long life, the other of death.
It is difficult to tell why an absence
of color should determine the fate
of one over the other.