WORDS LIKE FISH

“And write the way the waves write upon the sand,
the wind upon the pond and upon the brume, the sun.”

~ Rosalía de Castro (renowned poet from Galicia; translation from the original Castilian by Alexandra* ~ OneLight*®)

Observe that on my palms there are still scales
when I run them, wide open, through the salt of lips;
they are what remained from what flooded the ebbing tide
and from the fish that I returned to the wave
as I would return, to the depths and to life,
words much too small, so that they may grow
and give, to the nets, that fight which needs to be,
itself, alive and fair.

They will tear them, those nets, my words like fish,
and even the thicker mesh that dusks have woven
in hollow silences, and I have helped – truth be told
in the dim light, almost shadow, of the oil lamp -
to mend.

And they will be spread, fair and alive, when,
upon the shore the oars are raised so that the fight,
at last, sleeps in their shade with no rest for hunger.

Meanwhile, I observe that you are beautiful,
more beautiful than the afternoon in the shade of oars
when the fight lies down; and I run my lips,
wide open, through that hunger with no rest; on my tongue
there is still salt from the wave you poured into the tide
flooding, when I was mending, in the dim light (or some other shadow)
the thick mesh of hollow silences.

And what opens and tears through, suddenly, is the whole sea
in my palms; observe, in the new scales, what I offer you now:
those words which time given, in the depths, made grow
and that I fished, at last, beyond the estuary (fight and hunger),
fresh and alive, or simply fair.

Apart from the salt, seasoned, only, of seaweed
which the wave (that wave) returned as it would
return fulfillment to the shore, in the afternoon
that lies down, even more beautiful.

(Do we rest, now… or, in the lips, not quite yet?)

© 2006 Alexandra* ~ OneLight*®