But in the dark now and no glow showing and no lights and only the wind and the steady pull of the sail he felt that perhaps he was already dead. He put his two hands together and felt the palms. They were not dead and he could bring the pain of life by simply opening and closing them. He leaned his back against the stern and knew he was not dead. His shoulders told him.
I have all those prayers I promised if I caught the fish, he thought. But I am too tired to say them now. I better get the sack and put it over my shoulders.
He lay in the stern and steered and watched for the glow to come in the sky. I have half of him, he thought. Maybe I'll have the luck to bring the forward half in. I should have some luck. No, he said. You violated your luck when you went too far outside.
"Don't be silly," he said aloud. "And keep awake and steer. You may have much luck yet."
"I'd like to buy some if there's any place they sell it," he said.
What could I buy it with? he asked himself. Could I buy it with a lost harpoon and a broken knife and two bad hands?
"You might," he said. "You tried to buy it with eighty-four days at sea. They nearly sold it to you too."
This evening, I screened a documentary for the Great Lakes Poetry Festival. It was titled Bigfoot and Marty, and it was about . . . me. We got one of the biggest crowds of the entire festival.
Saint Marty's koan for the night: luck is like Bigfoot or a shark--it can surprise you or bite you in the ass.
No comments:
Post a Comment