puny dragon boats were raing

Puny dragon boats were racing

I see their frantic efforts
      those amateurs of the sport,
            paddling their fragile boats
                  across a putrid sea.
These juvenile dreamers never seemed to mind the stench
      of the dying waters of Manila Bay.

Cadence of muffled drums
      set their oars in synchrony.
            Their coaches barked,
                  the young ones strained their bodies
pulling together a little bit faster their puny dragon boats
      to a terminus imagined somewhere along the bay.

Was it the myth of dragons
      swallowing the blackened pearl of a burnt out sun
            that eclipsed in their minds
                   the hideous state of our bay?
Or perhaps reliving the first dragon boat race
      that saved a dying sea.