March 17: Trail of Phosphorescence, Saint Patrick's Day, Stories and Poems

Santiago prepares a meal . . . 

Back in the stern he turned so that his left hand held the strain of the line across his shoulders and drew his knife from its sheath with his right hand. The stars were bright now and he saw the dolphin clearly and he pushed the blade of his knife into his head and drew him out from under the stern. He put one of his feet on the fish and slit him quickly from the vent up to the tip of his lower jaw. Then he put his knife down and gutted him with his right hand, scooping him clean and pulling the gills clear. He felt the maw heavy and slippery in his hands and he slit it open. There were two flying fish inside. They were fresh and hard and he laid them side by side and dropped the guts and the gills over the stern. They sank leaving a trail of phosphorescence in the water. The dolphin was cold and a leprous gray-white now in the starlight and the old man skinned one side of him while he held his right foot on the fish's head. Then he turned him over and skinned the other side and cut each side off from the head down to the tail.

He slid the carcass overboard and looked to see if there was any swirl in the water. But there was only the light of its slow descent. He turned then and placed the two flying fish inside the two fillets of fish and putting his knife back in its sheath, he worked his way slowly back to the bow. His back was bent with the weight of the line across it and he carried the fish in his right hand.

If I didn't already like seafood, this description would probably make me never want to visit another Red Lobster for the rest of my life.  Of course, for Santiago, eating the dolphin is a matter of life and death at this point.  He has nothing else to fill his hungry belly.  

Today was Saint Patrick's Day, and the only thing I did to celebrate was wear a green shirt.  I didn't drink any green beer, eat corned beef and cabbage, or go hunting for leprechauns.  What I did do to fill my hungry heart was attend a Saint Patrick's Day virtual open mic.  

It was a lovely evening of sharing.  The host is a good friend of mine, and she spoke of her travels to Ireland and her love of Seamus Heaney.  Everyone else shared stories and poems, not necessarily about Ireland.  But I always think of a night of stories and poems between friends as a particularly Irish kind of gathering.  

So, stories and poetry.  A lovely way to honor Saint Patrick on his feast day.

On his feast day, Saint Marty usually just has a bowl of warm tapioca.

And a Lenten poem for tonight . . . 

Praise Hymn for Dog Crap

by:  Martin Achatz

Praise the smell of dog crap in March,
Fecund as tulip bulbs waiting to sprout,
Patches of mud, pools of snow melt,
The ancient shift toward vernal equinox,
Primal as Louis Leakey's Kenyan digs,
Skulls, bones of Adam's sons and daughters,
Driven out of the place of eternal produce,
Carrot and cuke and scallion and broccoli,
Blueberry, watermelon, banana, kiwi,
But not apple, not that serpent fruit
That sentenced the human race to evolution,
To the hunch of spine to fire, to a spit
Of brontosaur, blackened with smoke and fat,
Chewed with ape teeth to a pulp of protein,
Digested, absorbed, converted to muscle,
Skeleton, tendon, blood, a form suited
To ice age and mammoth hunt, stone
Spear versus saber tooth, the struggle
With bronze, iron, pyramid, pharaoh,
The split of Red Sea, a forty-year Bataan
March in the wilderness, then a land
Of milk and honey, a land of promise,
Filled with the reach of crocus
Through frost, through mud, through snow,
Through dog crap, toward the blessed sun.