Brackish, Swordtail, Bichir, Sturgeon
Gourami, Pike, Discus, Bowfin,
Blenny, Gar, Snakehead, Bass:
Legions of fierce scaly soldiers
sparkling under the shine of the sun’s
misplaced affection, warded off by
the fluttering scalps of an army of immense semi-aquatic
trees, the species of which was lost along the canals of history.
The light was so filtered by their vermillion-striped
leaves that one could see its very beams, stretching for
the cool of the tree-logged water. And what rare water it
is, clear as the air itself and twice as sweet to the lungs of
man and fish alike. The fruit that grows above compares even
sweeter, with no peel to hinder its unabashed juicy flesh. They taste
like a winter’s day in the middle of this noonday heat, the tingly frizzing
of bubbles to the surface after each bite, so succulent –
But I will choose not to eat of these melons, which are ripe this time
of year, and not even in their best condition. When winter
arrives, they die, and then are empowered to paralyze the
very essence of consciousness with a salivating barrage
of tantalizing flavours.
But I, perched among
drapes of their fragrant, fragile buds, lay not a
single claw on the fruits, for they are not mine to savour
yet, but were planted here to relieve
the appetites of bedraggled wanderers on their way
to Yonder Side, though they protest and say
“We are on a journey! We are travelers!”
Where to? Where from? What for?
They never can answer.
“Who are you, who wander here –
Lost, alone, and incomplete?
Hark this tender, lulling sigh
Lilting lithely through my trees,
Bidding you seek out a form
Following swiftly behind
As it extends caring claw,
Helping you go on your way.”
For what seems weeklong, I
wait in my hunched roost for a reply to my
call, but only the ripples of fish
breaks silence’s shell. Across the canopy
I bound in search of life’s affirmation,
dislodging fruit into the mouths of the grateful
beneath, when a small paddling boat catches my
ever-watchful eye. Within, huddled in each
other’s arms, are the youth of male and female
sexes – not quite children, not quite adults –
engrossed beyond body in a transcendent intertwining,
as the roots of the trees around caress the earth
underwater, despite its unwholesome, marshy
consistency. Their countenances imitate peaceful content
and even traces of human love radiate
from them in corporeal hotness.
Their single being is so engrossed that they
do not notice me, a hulking shadow in the branches
ruffling its feathers to be noticed passively.
But they only notice the beauty they share,
and I am as transparent as the water supporting them –
the fish playing around them –
the fruit above, and the sun threatening
to burn it all with a cosmic passion –
It is all mute in their eyes, so I must speak to them
for all whom cannot speak for themselves.
“Who are you, enraptured youth, lost in my
forlorn forest, set apart from time and space,
when the sun is pelting the melting land
with her sensational exhalation?”
The young lovers offered no answer
but tightened their hold on what could be felt.
“Why do you shun me, wandering ones,
the Spirit of this forest? You may believe
that what you have is good, but it is nothing
compared with that which could be. Look –“
The female human roused in irritation –
A shoe bounced off my ragged coat
and disturbed the fishes. “Oh, shove off,
you old pesky bird! Can’t you see how
busy we are, before you interrupted?”
“Truth be told, I cannot see
what is being accomplished here.”
The male started, as if from a trance.
“Babe, do you know where we are?
Actually, could you remind me first
where we were before we became here?”
The seething girl peered around
but could not recognize enthralling beauty
or the forest for the trees
or the meaning of that phrase.
“If it is where you must go,
there is no doubt the Pasture is your
destination. I would be pleased if
your companionship along this route –“
Another shoe went whistling by,
wrenched from the foot of the male.
It seems I shall be ignored;
such is the lot of the realest truth.
“Just shut up and grab an oar –
we came through there, I’m pretty sure.”
But I could see the way the lie
further clouded sleep-dried eyes
as they paddled under trunks,
between the roots and through the golden
patches reflected along the water. But
they would bump and fail to sail along
in a straight course. I followed overhead,
distraught by their failures, unheeded when
their boat aimed for a nonchalant carp
and capsized. The fish floated up with the
lovers, slain by the forward pointed forwards
to nowhere. As one wet mass of resentment,
they tumbled back into the boat, breathing
heavily and spitting out perfectly clean water.
“What got in our way?”
The corpse of the koi, the most divine of
the entire grove, even when perished, rocked
gently against the starboard. Its scales are
iridescent, patterned like those of the fish in
the Pasture, though I know not how it came here,
and simply to meet a pitiful fate as this. Nothing
was considered by the lovers, whose stomachs
shook their limp frames upon the sight of its
heavenly meat, and they scrambled to heave its enormous
carcass into their tiny vessel. With
bared fangs and salivating maws
they dug into its skin and skewed
portions of rent life into
the burbling abyss of the throat.
I beseeched them from the branches:
“My dear lovers, do not lose
your senses! Try this fruit instead,
more delicious than any fish, and meant
for you –“ A shoe soared high.
Their eyes were wild, breaths rasped;
already the charming koi was but bone,
and their bodies soaked in each other’s blood
that widened the Wild in their eyes.
Hacking crude spears from the boat
with bare hands, they speared a gentle
arapaima. The female demanded larger portions,
but the male submitted her to a hardy blow
which she returned diminished. I could
stand no more, and fled the noonday sorrow
deeper into the forest, until their splashing
and hatred was no longer audible; My distraught
heightened as I leap past a voracious school of
conger eels, rows upon rows of hellish teeth,
starving for the misery and entrails of prey,
wriggling swiftly in the direction of the struggle.
I only wish they had desired the Pasture
as much as they had desired their illusion.
With farewell, so I greet
afternoon’s dry cooling with a tune
to soften love’s worst memories;
I return in turn from whence I came
until the next poor wandering name.
“Draw thee hither, young lovers,
As noonday sky flares red –
Under the shade in heat of day
And heat of bodied union lay,
Don’t you wish to find a grove?
Prevent thy hold from being clove
Will I, thy cloak, prioritize
Since time and darkness awfully flies
If devotion cannot dearly hover
Across the wood to Yonder Side.”
Morning's Early Dark 