The fish never changed his course nor his direction all that night as far as the man could tell from watching the stars. It was cold after the sun went down and the old man's sweat dried cold on his back and his arms and his old legs. During the day he had taken the sack that covered the bait box and spread it in the sun to dry. After the sun went down he tied it around his neck so that it hung down over his back and he cautiously worked it down under the line that was across his shoulders now. The sack cushioned the line and he had found a way of leaning forward against the bow so that he was almost comfortable. The position actually was only somewhat less intolerable; but he thought of it as almost comfortable.
I can do nothing with him and he can do nothing with me, he thought. Not as long as he keeps this up.
I could write about loss again. It's on my mind a lot these days, except when I'm sleeping or crazy busy. And it seems like I'm always crazy busy or asleep. But I have decided to take a break from that subject today. Sort of like Santiago forcing himself to take a snooze.
So, tonight, I just offer you a poem. One that I wrote a long time ago, when everyone I loved was still alive, and my life was . . . simpler.
This poem makes Saint Marty smile.
The Tin Man's Heart
by: Martin Achatz
The Wizard gave the Tin Man
A Heart with a clock
That unwound after sundown,
Hands slowing at midnight
In the dark bed of his chest,
Each second an immense field of poppies,
Fragrant as Dorothy's thick braids.
In the forest under the stars,
The Tin Man listened to his heart tick,
Like the sound of lovers kissing,
Waiting for his spring to uncoil,
Praying for that moment:
He and Dorothy in the poppies,
The sun on their gleaming bodies.
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