They drove the thin poles relentlessly

A trap for fish in the shallows

The bars shifting in the night, like fish, they

Never knew where or how they would appear in the morning

 

The slick cedar drove well, the flat sky

Anointing their circle of days, of nets

The skiff-men wore their salt hands and the gunwales

Groaned under cold wet rope, chattering ceaselessly

 

Sometimes an abandoned weir would stand for a decade

Trying to point still to the still air, forlorn and stark

A small grove sadly imitating trees

The nets long since blown and scattered

 

Boys would want the poles to build a raft but

The cedar would always sink, too much like the sea

To remember that wood should float or that

Their forgotten purpose had fallen from the fisherman’s Grace.

 

 

©2017   eolon