can't separate they'd miss each other too much fish have special meaning to the Chinese, so a search for the story led to an extra explanation of the vase. The color and shape of the fish identifies it as a koi, a variety of carp. The breed originated in China and was named about 500 B.C. Chinese invaders took the fish with them to Japan, and by the early 1800s, Japanese farmers bred the koi as pets and for food in winter. But there is more to koi history. Legend says a school of koi swam upstream to get to the top of the “Dragon Gate” mountain. Most of the fish turned back at the waterfall, but one reached the top, and the gods rewarded it by turning it into a dragon. It is now thought to be the image of power, strength, perseverance, longevity, good fortune and a fulfilled destiny. Putting the vase in a home brings all these traits. And it adds beauty while displayed on a table. a poem about fish vases. What mind first thought of a vase (china, hard, self-contained) leaping with a gaping mouth so eager for flower-bait? Yes, there is water inside, and fish silver ponds, rivers, seas. But to make a billabong of a cod; make marlin smell roses? Odd is the first word that skims like a flying fish, bites like barracuda, in my bemused mind. Weird rises too, flashy trout to drowning butterfly, hooked on well cast cunning. I place violets in the minnows, arrange long stems in strange, bright glazed, kettles of fish. P.S. Cottier