Post by MoonyLuna on Jan 20, 2009 11:20:37 GMT -5
Craft is something you can do until you fall into senility,
but art is what you cannot do.
—Robert Lowell
Ocean shallows, sun shining clear on clean sand
then the distant blue where depth begins
its promise of forever. The world ends in cataracts
falling freely over the edge into blackness
and stars; how many centuries to learn the earth
is round? Bonefish still don't know it speeding
like horizontal rockets, yellow dorsal fins
flashing, their heft and strength beguiling anglers
who invent bait with pieces of feather and fur,
a lifetime's apprenticeship, just to fool an
inedible fish. What is the value of doing a useless
thing? Wade in the flats with the patience of a heron
waiting for years in the stone stillness of day,
waiting till water winds stop and the strike
explodes in a silver shimmying on the long
parabola of your cast. In that moment you do
what cannot be done and you let go, set the fish
free as poets of the T'ang dynasty sent their
verses downriver in flames.
Copyright
Ron De Maris
but art is what you cannot do.
—Robert Lowell
Ocean shallows, sun shining clear on clean sand
then the distant blue where depth begins
its promise of forever. The world ends in cataracts
falling freely over the edge into blackness
and stars; how many centuries to learn the earth
is round? Bonefish still don't know it speeding
like horizontal rockets, yellow dorsal fins
flashing, their heft and strength beguiling anglers
who invent bait with pieces of feather and fur,
a lifetime's apprenticeship, just to fool an
inedible fish. What is the value of doing a useless
thing? Wade in the flats with the patience of a heron
waiting for years in the stone stillness of day,
waiting till water winds stop and the strike
explodes in a silver shimmying on the long
parabola of your cast. In that moment you do
what cannot be done and you let go, set the fish
free as poets of the T'ang dynasty sent their
verses downriver in flames.
Copyright
Ron De Maris