"He hasn't changed at all," he said. But watching the movement of the water against his hand he noted that it was perceptibly slower.
"I'll lash the two oars together across the stern and that will slow him in the night," he said. "He's good for the night and so am I."
It would be better to gut the dolphin a little later to save the blood in the meat, he thought. I can do that a little later and lash the oars to make a drag at the same time. I had better keep the fish quiet now and not disturb him too much at sunset. The setting of the sun is a difficult time for all fish.
It seems as though Santiago has a mind of fish. (Yes, I stole that particular phrasing from Wallace Stevens' "The Snowman." So sue me.) The old man understands fish on a very deep level, just as he understands the sea. It is his life and spirit.
Another busy day for me. However, I took some time this evening to relax. Watched a comedy show with my wife and son. Laughed hard. It recharged my depleted batteries a little bit and gave me energy to work on a new poem.
This weekend, I will be traveling to the Keweenaw Peninsula to be part of a radio variety show. We are recording two episodes of the show on Sunday night. One of the shows is all about the Kalevala. I am the show's resident poet, and I usually contribute poems for each episode. So, this evening, I spent about four hours writing a bear poem for the Kalevala show. And writing that poem recharged my battery, as well.
It's strange how small things--watching a half hour sitcom, taking a 15-minute nap, working on a new poem--can be like cold water on a sunburned back. The things I did were tiny, and, yet, when I was done, I felt more like myself than I have all week long. Maybe because I was concentrating on something that literally brought me personal joy and gave my mind a needed break.
Santiago has a mind of fish. I have a mind of poetry. Reading poems. Writing poems. Talking about poems. Leading poetry workshops. If I do any of these things, I am suddenly more human and can face life's challenges a little better. Or a lot better
Perhaps I need to schedule meetings with myself. Poetry breaks. To blow the dust and cobwebs out of the corners of my soul. Open the windows and let a little sunshine in.
Saint Marty thinks the world needs a poetry break right now.
The poem that I wrote this evening:
Mead Paw Chase
by: Martin Achatz
the name Yahweh, Finns
never put the word for bear
on their tongues, used
circumlocutions instead.
Mead paw. Browed one.
Dweller of the land. Golden
apple of the forest. In that between
time of mustard leaf and ice
one year, I heard dogs maul
the air all day, distant, hungry.
Near evening, walking a dirt path,
I watched the berm of pines
bristle, needles stand up
like hairs on my knuckles. And I
felt her before I saw her, her
black tidal rolling toward me
out of the dusking woods.
Mead paw crashed the clearing
in full gallop, eyes crazed, blizzard
white. This golden apple didn’t
stop to anoint me with her gaze
or swipe of her apocalyptic
paw. Instead, she slammed
through the trees, disappeared,
swift as the spring Chocolay.
A pack of beagles swarmed
the wake of her, all hairy thunder
and sweat. They followed
her ebon backside like bodies
drawn down to Atlantic Ocean
bed by the sinking Titanic.
I stood there, frozen supplicant,
as those barking thrones chased
the sun out of the heavens.
I listened and listened,
waited and waited,
for I don’t know what
(gunshot? Yahweh’s voice
singing cantos of the Kalevala?)
until the bare moon rose
above me, opened its muzzle,
drizzled me in honey light.
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